All faculty guaranteed at least a 20.7 percent pay boost over four years
By Lisa M. Krieger
Mercury News April 3, 2007
An agreement has been reached between California State University faculty and administrators, averting a strike and boosting the pay of educators in the 23-campus system.
After almost two years of bargaining, all faculty are guaranteed a 20.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment in their salaries during the course of the four-year contract. When other "step up" increases are included for eligible faculty, the package represents a 24.87 percent salary increase.
Salary was the main issue of contention during negotiations on the 41-article contract, particularly for faculty at San Jose State University, where there is a high cost of living.
The total pay package will cost the CSU system more than $400 million over four years.
Both faculty and administrators said they were pleased with the outcome - and relieved that school will stay in session for the more than 400,000 students in the system.
A strike could have held up two days of classes later this month.
For assistant and associate professors, the salary provision will close the pay gap between CSU and comparable universities. For full professors and lecturers, it will cut the gap in half.
The base salary increases will raise the average salary for a tenure track faculty member from $74,000 to $90,749 and the average salary for a full professors with tenure from $86,000 to $105,465 by the end of the contract period.
In addition, $28 million will be provided in the form of merit and equity increases that will provide raises for senior faculty who have reached the top of the pay scale, as well as boost junior faculty compensation. The CSU will seek an additional 1 percent increase for all employees' compensation in state budget funds in each of the next three years.
"We pretty much got everything we asked for. We're satisfied with the agreement," said CFA President John Travis, a history professor at CSU-Humbolt. One of the few things they did not receive was a sought-after early retirement program.
Cal State chancellor Charles B. Reed said that "CSU employees - including our faculty - are the university's greatest asset. This agreement strikes a realistic balance between providing deserved raises to our faculty and our limited financial resources."
The contract language will be finalized this week. Later this month, the faculty will vote on ratification, then submit it to the CSU Board of Trustees for approval.
In mid-March, the 11,000-member California Faculty Association voted to authorize a strike, with two-day walkouts rolling from campus to campus. Such a strike at the 400,000-student system, the largest university system in the country, would have been the first.
CSU offered the faculty close to a 25 percent raise - but the faculty association had argued that under the university's proposal, raises would not be distributed fairly. They also complained that some wage increases were contingent on the state Legislature approving additional funding.
But the March 25 recommendations by a neutral "fact finder," which provided a roadmap for settling both economic and non-economic issues, helped break a logjam in the process.
Citing the CSU faculty's double-digit salary lag behind instructors at comparable institutions, the report backed a plan to provide for 25 percent raises over four years.
Faculty said they did not think the pay raise would trigger increases in student fees. "There is enough liquidity in the system to pay employees more," Travis said. "We don't think that student fee increases are necessary."
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