By Connie Skipitares Mercury News January 23, 2007
Some 24,000 professors and other faculty who teach at California's 23 state university campuses are threatening to strike at the end of March in what would be the first work stoppage over labor issues in the history of the college system.
The board of directors of the California Faculty Association, which represents the faculty members, Tuesday night scheduled strike votes to take place across the campuses in early and mid-March.
Contract talks between the union and the California State University system have hit an impasse and a fact finder is working to resolve the issues. Those results are expected in early March, but CFA President John Travis said the union will proceed with its voting timetable. The CFA's labor contract technically expired in July, but has been extended by both sides until the fact finding process is complete and results are agreed on by both sides.
The major contract issues are salary, workload, class size and tenure. The CFA said it seeks a 25 percent wage increase over four years. According to a CSU Web site, the administration has countered with a 24 percent increase over four years, which the CFA disputes, saying it interprets the increase to be 14 percent ``when state budget contingencies are pulled out.''
The strike votes will take place during the weeks of March 5 and 12 at the campuses across the state. Faculty at San Jose State and San Francisco State probably will vote during the week of March 12. Results will be announced March 21.
A simple majority vote is needed to call a strike. If faculty members vote to walk out, the CFA board of directors will determine when the ``rolling walkouts'' will begin.
Last option
According to the Higher Education Employee Relations Act, state college employees may strike after all efforts at labor bargaining are exhausted.
If the faculty members do walk out, it will be the largest strike of higher education teachers in U.S. history. Faculty and student strikes took place on many college campuses during the 1960s era of political unrest, but they were social protests, not union strikes.
Travis said the work stoppages would be rolling walkouts, in which faculty members would strike for one or two days on different campuses. The goal is to minimize impact on students, ``while sending a strong message to the administration,'' Travis said in a conference call news conference Wednesday.
``We have said all along that we do not want to strike, but we will if that is what is necessary, and it is beginning to look like it is,'' said Travis, a political science professor at Humboldt State University.
Concerns raised
Paul Browning, a spokesman for the 400,000-student California State University system, said administrators worry about the effect of a strike. ``Our biggest concern is would it hurt the students,'' he said. ``Class closures concern us greatly. If there's a two-day rolling strike and a student only has classes two days, missing one day is quite a bit.
``We've worked hard to give them (CFA) an excellent offer. It would be disappointing if they do go on strike. We're trying to keep a positive outlook and hope this doesn't happen.''
The average salary of full-time, tenured professors is about $86,000 annually, according to CSU officials. Tenure-track faculty earn an average of $74,000 annually. About half the faculty members -- 12,000 -- work under temporary contracts and earn less than $43,000 a year.
Travis said CSU faculty overall are paid about 18 percent less than their peers across the country.
Since 2002, according to the CFA, executive salaries and perks increased by an average 23 percent, while faculty pay grew by 3.5 percent.
Travis said if a strike takes place, he hopes students don't stay away from campus. ``We hope they'll come out and join us.''
He added that if rolling walkouts aren't effective, faculty members could go to a full strike.
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