Online Forty Niner: v8n3: Panel hired to overlook contract dispute

A contract dispute between the California State University system and the union representing CSU faculty members will be sent to a fact-finding panel for review, according to Ken Swisher, a spokesman for the Chancellor's office.

The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU faculty members, wants to postpone the use of merit pay for faculty, according to a bulletin distributed to CFA members.

"What the chancellor likes to see is the ability for the administrative side to be able to increase pay faculty, based upon their own discretion," says William Johnson, associate professor of philosophy and vice president of the Cal State Long Beach chapter of the CFA. "The chancellor doesn't want to back off from the discretionary pay aspects."

The current system of merit pay, called Faculty Merit Increases, allocates salary increases for faculty members based only on work performed. The union claims this system is unfair because administrators can arbitrarily determine who gets a salary increase.

The merit pay process requires faculty to submit an application, which is then peer-reviewed and submitted to the college president. The criteria for assigning the raises are set up by the individual universities, Swisher said.

In the fact-finding process, the CFA and the representatives from the chancellor's office will present their arguments to the three-member panel. The panel, composed of an appointee from the CFA, CSU and an uninvolved representative from the Public Employees Relations Board, will then investigate the matter and present the findings and recommendations, which are non-binding.

"After that, we go back to the bargaining table and use the information from the fact-finding report to reach an agreement," Swisher said.

The three-year contract between the CFA and CSU expires next year, but issues with salaries can be reviewed every year, according to Swisher.

The Office of the Chancellor, which presides over the entire CSU system, will negotiate a single contract with the CFA, not each individual chapter, according to Elizabeth Hoffman, an English lecturer and a CFA chapter executive board member.

"The problems are with the central office, not the CSULB campus."

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