CFA votes on new contract

After 14 months of bargaining and mediation, including a declaration of an impasse, California Faculty Association members begin voting today to ratify a new contract.

A tentative agreement on the contract was reached by the CFA and the California State University administration in June. The contract was approved by the CSU Board of Trustees earlier this month.

Key provisions of the contract include performance pay, a new salary schedule and a new workload description.

Performance pay caused concern among some CFA members, said Mike Hassul, president of the CFA Long Beach chapter. Many faculty members feel performance pay is divisive and unnecessary, he said.

"Part of the problem is that some of the campuses do not have a good relationship with their presidents who will approve 50 percent of the awards," Hassul said.

"Hopefully on our campus, with the cooperative administration, we will get the maximum benefit out of it."

The performance-pay program is designed so that peer review committees can make recommendations for performance awards, which would then be subject to approval by each respective CSU campus president.

"Faculty will have to compete for performance pay which is about 20 percent of the overall money available for increases," Hassul said.

The Academic Senate will approve a performance-pay policy that outlines criteria to be used in determining how performance awards will be distributed, Hassul said.

Budget constraints and a non-education-friendly legislature made bargaining difficult, Hassul said.

"But the bottom line is, given the realities of the situation, I do not think we can do better with this contract," he said, adding: "I think it will work on our campus."

Voting is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Friday and from Oct. 2-4 on the second floor of the University Student Union.