Faculty protests lack of contract

By Ana Tintocalis, On-Line Forty-Niner

Monday, October 19, 1998

For the first time in the history of the California Faculty Association and the California State University system, faculty representatives from CSU campuses voted unanimously to plan a series of "job actions" to protest the lack of a new contract.

The "job actions" may eventually lead to a vote to strike, said Hamdi Bilici, Cal State Long Beach CFA president, on Thursday.

Although the recent decision does not mean the CSU faculty will go on strike soon, it does mean the CFA will begin to take a more aggressive approach to the current contract negotiations.

The CFA Emergency Situation Committee has been assembled and will meet this Friday to discuss the types of job actions the association will take during the next few months.

The CFA board of directors will only consider issuing a strike-authorization vote if the CFA's actions do not prompt the CSU administration to outline a contract that meets the association's requests.

The strike-authorization vote would give CFA members the right to decide whether the faculty at all CSU campuses should collectively go on strike.

"This is just a preliminary step," Bilici said. "We're not going on a strike, students don't have to worry about it. If there is one, I don't think there will be one during the fall semester."

One type of job action the Emergency Situation Committee may consider launching is an informational campaign that would include distributing at CSU campuses fliers, leaflets and pamphlets describing the CFA's position and concerns, Bilici said.

"What type of job action we take is something we have to sit down and think very carefully [about]," he said. "Whatever we do, at least on this campus, we must make sure that our students do not get hurt."

Although faculty and staff members at other campuses have already used tactics such as a silent protest and picketing in the past month, a bigger push will probably occur for more of these demonstrations at CSULB, Bilici said.

"I think it's unfortunate that a few activists within the CSU would tribute misleading information rather than concentrate their efforts at the bargaining table," said Ken Swisher, CSU press relations director. "The group that made this vote represents about a 100 people. That's not a very large percentage of our 20,000-person faculty."

The CFA president at each CSU campus voted on the decision, along with two to four delegates, from each campus, who were selected at large, Bilici said.

The CFA represents all faculty members and nonmembers within the CSU.

Since the beginning of the semester, the CSU administration agreed to extend the CFA's old contract, which expired July 1, to draft a new contract that would address such issues as a general salary increase, merit pay and the Faculty Early Retirement Program, which allows a professor to take time off from teaching full time for a year and then return to teaching.

After repeated attempts to settle these issues through a state-mandated mediation process, the CFA and the CSU have been unable to agree on a new contract that both parties consider fair.

Negotiations remain at an impasse and are now in the fact-finding process, in which an objective panel does its own research on the situation, reviews the arguments of both parties and finds a possible solution to the dispute.

After the panel alerts both parties of its findings and recommendations, it will then present the information to the public.

The appointed mediator may then continue efforts at mediation afterward.

"We [the CFA members] have to find ways of doing things to show our displeasure with the treatment we get," Bilici said. "At the same time, you want to make sure that our students are not inconvenienced, our institution is not hurt by it, and our faculty would not get hurt."

One of the most pressing issues that has divided the CSU and the CFA is the general salary increase. The CSU administration has offered a 5-percent increase, while the CFA is requesting a 6-percent increase across the board.

"The faculty feels that they've been wronged," Bilici said. "They haven't had a raise in many, many years."

The California Post Secondary Education Commission conducted a study that showed that faculty salaries within the CSU system are 11 percent lower than faculty salaries at 20 other universities.

"All we want is a plan that will close the salary gap in a couple of years or so," Bilici said. "But they [CSU officials] refuse to put the plan together."

"We're [CSU officials] working to get them that [the salary increase]," Swisher said. "That 5 percent would cost us about $50 million. What they're asking for would cost us between $60 [million] and $70 million, and there's no money for it."

But CFA members also attribute their growing frustration to the CSU trustees' recent decision to grant the second round of a 10- percent average pay raise and other benefits to CSU campus presidents and system officers.

"The faculty is extremely unhappy with the way things are going," Bilici said. "They don't feel like they're getting the respect that they deserve and that the CSU is not bargaining in good faith."

The bargaining dispute also includes other issues related to salary and benefits, threatened removal of workload standards and improved job stability.

"The work we do here, which is to educate students, must come first, not the politics," Bilici said. "If the politics dictates what we do, then it's a sad day for education."

The CSU and CFA are scheduled to have another mediation session today.