CSU professors, coaches, counselors, librarians and other eligible faculty will get pay bumps and a one-time bonus — for their work during the pandemic — under a tentative labor deal, the California State University announced Monday, Dec. 20.
The agreement between the CSU and the California Faculty Association will cover 29,000 faculty across all 23 campuses and, if approved by the CSU Board of Trustees and CFA members, will run until June 30, 2024, a CSU statement said.
The CFA is the union for Cal State teachers.
The CSU is the nation’s largest public university system, educating more than 485,000 students annually in nearly every part of the state, with campuses in Fullerton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and elsewhere. The CSU’s four-largest campuses, based on enrollment, are all in Southern California, according to 2020 data: Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Northridge and San Diego State University.
“The CSU’s world-class faculty are critical to the success of our talented and diverse students,” Chancellor Joseph I. Castro said in a statement. “The new contract acknowledges the hard work of our faculty to ensure continued student success through the unprecedented global pandemic, while also ensuring fair compensation in challenging economic situations throughout our communities across the state.”
The agreement, though, comes after union members bargained with the CSU system for months, a statement from the CFA said.
The previous contract — which initially ran until 2017 but was extended multiple times — expired at the end of August. In September, the two sides declared negotiations were at an impasse.
Thousands of faculty members submitted petitions to their campus presidents demanding a fair contract and last month, more than 100 protested at the Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach for the higher wages, the CFA said.
“We were able to reach this tentative agreement because of the tremendous work and actions of faculty and students on all 23 campuses,” CFA President Charles Toombs said in a statement, “who communicated their strong and committed voices to the CSU, Board of Trustees, and to Chancellor Castro that we must have a fair contract.”
“We all thank Chancellor Castro for acting on this strong faculty commitment to rights, respect, and justice,” Toombs, an Africana studies professor at SDSU, added, “where faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.”
The tentative contract, according to the CSU and CFA, includes:
- A one-time payment of $3,500, prorated by each faculty member’s 2020-21 time base, as a thank your for their service during the coronavirus pandemic.
- A 4% salary increase, retroactive to July 1.
- Another salary increase, up top 4%, effective next fiscal year, depending on the state budget allocation to the CSU.
- A 2.65% service salary increase during fiscal years 2021-22 and 2023-24 for all eligible faculty, including coaches, counselors and librarians.
- A 2.65% post-promotion increase during fiscal year 2022-23 for eligible faculty, including coaches, counselors and librarians.
The agreement also allows librarian and counselor faculty more opportunities to work remotely, better opportunities for tenure-track employment for lecturers and the creation of a workgroup to consider how to better address parental leave, the CFA statement read.
“Compensation for our dedicated employees is the top fiscal priority of the trustees in the CSU’s 2022-23 budget request,” Castro said in a statement, “and we are committed to working with the leaders of CFA and the other unions that represent our employees to advocate to our legislative leaders and the governor for fully funding the CSU budget.”
The CSU Board of Trustees will vote on the new contract during a meeting in late January.
“For the first time in decades, we have won a successor contract agreement without being on the brink of a strike,” Kevin Wehr, CFA vice president and chair of the bargaining team, said in a statement. “The actions that faculty took over the last months forced management to recognize that the power our union displayed in the Fight for Five in 2016 is still current.”