CSU Employees Union Begins Five Day Strike Across All 23 University Campuses

The California Faculty Association began a five day strike at all 23 California State University  campuses on Monday, with around 30,000 professors, librarians, and other employees walking off the job on the first day of the Spring Semester.

In the last few years, many high-profile strikes have occurred in California, including the massive Hollywood strikes that occurred throughout much of 2023. Within the education system strikes have also been plentiful, with many K-12 districts including Los Angeles and Oakland having some sort of strike action in the past few years, as well as the large University of California student worker faculty strike in 2022. The UC strike, which lasted from November 14, 2022 to December 19, 2022, was particularly notable because of the chaos it brought to campuses just before winter break, and because of the large 55% over two and a half years pay raises that teaching assistants and researchers won through the United Auto Workers union.

Earlier this year, CSU workers began talks of a strike following years of complaining about financial hardships. Over the summer, the CFA began negotiating a new contract with CSU, hoping to avoid yet another strike in the state. CSU faculty, who are currently paid on average $99,000 for full-time work,$67,000 for part-time work, and just above $50,000 for lecturers, asked for a 12% across-the-board raise. CSU countered with a 5% raise. By August, both sides stopped talking because of a lack of progress, inviting in an independent arbiter.

Demands soon became solidified. In addition to the 12% raise, the CFA demanded an additional parental leave increase from six weeks to a full semester, more gender-inclusive bathrooms, pay equity, more manageable work loads, more mental health counselors, and more lactating facilities for faculty with babies. Despite CSU still showing willingness to talk with the union over the issues, the CFA, with members at all 23 CSU campuses across the state, voted on authorizing a strike in late October.

In December, the first strikes occurred, with 4 separate one-day strikes happening at various CSU campuses. Following those, CSU raised their offer, offering 15% over 3 years instead of the 12% over 1 year that the CFA stubbornly refused to budge from. However, the CFA rejected this as well. With talks breaking down once more, a more severe 5 day strike encompassing all campuses in the system was announced for this week. While a deal was made with 1,100 Teamsters campus workers during the weekend to avoid a separate strike, no such deal was made with the CFA. And on Monday, the CFA did as promised, with tens of thousands of employees walking off at the 23 CSU campuses.

A 5 Day Strike

“Throughout 2023, we are bargaining with CSU management on selected portions of our contract,” the CFA said during the weekend. “During this ‘re-opener bargaining,’ we are negotiating for community well-being, safety on campus, appropriate workload, adequate and humane paid parental leave, and wages that keep pace with the cost of living and set a livable minimum standard for our lowest paid faculty. We are fighting against management’s self-defeating austerity policies that serve to shift funding away from classrooms, labs, libraries, athletics, and counseling centers.”

“The CFA Board of Directors has voted to initiate a CSU systemwide strike January 22-26, 2024.”

🚨STRIKE DAY! Thousands on historic STATE-WIDE STRIKE!
📢TELL @thecsu management to invest in their FACULTY & STUDENTS!
⏰Time for manageable workloads, fair pay, more mental health counselors, better parental leave, & safe campuses. #RaisetheFloor #SolidaritySeason pic.twitter.com/nW4ikO83nW

— California Faculty Association (@CFA_United) January 22, 2024

Students were immediately affected by the strikes on Monday, with almost 500,000 students statewide having their first week back in class now in jeopardy. While many students opposed the strike, the CFA attempted to spin it, acting extremely defensive in their strike FAQ and even having several questions devoted to saying that the strike isn’t hurting the students, and instead, CSU is being hurt.

“There are some really on the teachers side and others against it,” said Amy, who leads several student groups at CSU-Fullerton, to the Globe on Monday. “Most of us though are disappointed. We came through COVID years and we know that long breaks can be bad. By doing this, they just show that they are only for themselves.”

Another student at the campus, Mike, added, “We had a strike when I was in high. Several weeks. You know, we liked the days off but we also felt betrayed. We never saw our teacher the same way after that and we actually had to have several assemblies with our principal to stop doing certain things. Like, we would be answering questions like ‘Why did Benedict Arnold betray the Americans?’ and most of the class would write down a variant of ‘Like how our teachers betrayed us last month?’ This is feeling just like that all over again.”

A question of money

CSU, facing budget crunches, especially in the coming years with the California State Budget being reduced because of the massive deficit ($38 billion – $68 billion), has said that they are working within where they can financially, with 5% this year, and 15% over three years, being financially viable but 12% in one year not being so.

“We must work within our financial reality,” explained CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia during the weekend.

The CFA has countered that CSU has a massive $766 million emergency reserve fund and that in addition to projected surpluses, could make the 12% raise a reality.

However, CSU’s Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, Leora Freedman countered that “Those reserve funds cannot be tapped for wage hikes because they are meant for times of economic uncertainty or emergencies, including wildfires or earthquakes. We’ve made several offers with movement, and most recently a 15% increase that would be paid over three years, providing faculty a 5% increase each year. But the faculty union has never moved off its 12% demand for one year only.”

While the strike will only last a week, experts said that it will likely remain deadlocked until the CFA decides to play ball and begin negotiations.

“The CFA has never let go of this 12% figure,” John Waithe, a Chicago-based higher education researcher, told the Globe on Monday. “All throughout 2023. 12%. They dropped a few benefit things, and CSU has raised and raised their offers, but nothing.”

“This is getting pretty unusual, but you can see what happened to them psychologically. They’ve held on to that 12% for so long now that anything below that at this point will be a failure to them. Yes, they deserve a raise, but they are not listening to the financial realities of CSU. They aren’t compromising or working together. And you can see why the public is becoming less and less sympathetic.”

“You can hope that both sides will at least have plans to meet by the end of the week, when the strike officially ends. But if not, and they are still ground in on the 12%, there’s no other way to go that escalate further, which may mean a long-term strike.”

As of Monday at noon, there are currently no bargaining sessions scheduled between the CFA and CSU.