Faculty protest planned for meeting

Association members to show dissatisfaction with state funding porcedures, contract stalemate

Contract disputes, affirmative action and support of funding for higher education and not prisons will be the focus issues of today's California State University, Board of Trustees meeting.

Several hundred California Faculty Association members from across the state will hold a demonstration outside of the Board of Trustees meeting, protesting the lack of action taken in the 11 month contract negotiation between the CSU and the CFA, climaxed by a stalemate declared by CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz on March 28, said Trudy Goodwin Barnes, spokeswomen for the CFA.

"We are asking for the chancellor and the Board of Trustees to take action in settling the contract dispute now," Barnes said.

The two issues that are still in dispute between the CFA and the Board of Trustees are a salary raise and the merit (performance pay) program.

Munitz has accused the CFA of being against the merit program, Barnes said.

However, the CFA has never been against the idea of a merit program, Barnes said, but there are issues with in the chancellor's program that the CFA objects to.

According to the chancellor's plan, each of the campus presidents can award or deny merit to any faculty member, Barnes said, which is the part of the plan that the CFA objects to the most.

Barnes also said that there would be no faculty input made into who received the award and who would not, and that there was no way to appeal or make grievance with a president's decision. "The faculty need to have input and (the decisions) has to be appealable, it has to be grievable," Barnes said.

Many faculty members demonstrating at today's meeting will be dressed in mortarboards and prison guard costumes to exhibit their disappointment in Gov. Pete Wilson giving funding to prisons and not CSUs, Barnes said.

"It is to show our support for CSU funding," Barnes said.

Barnes said that over the past 10 years, the CSU has had to deny admittance to 200,000 potential CSU students. During that time, prison spending has increased over 170 percent in the budget, she said.

"Pete Wilson needs to get the states priorities straight," Barnes said, "and the number one priority should be education."

The demonstration by the faculty members will take place 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., including a press conference at noon. There will also be a street theater dramatization, singers, musicians and a "Wall of Messages" expressing faculty's demands.

While protesting is going on outside of the Board of Trustees meeting, inside members of the University Faculty Personnel and Educational Policy committees will hold a joint meeting to discuss affirmative action, Dennis Armstrong, spokesman for the Chancellor's Offices, said.

The meeting will be at 1:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Glenn S. Dumke Conference Center at the Chancellor's Office.