Union debate over data

The union representing teachers in the Cal State University system has accused the administration of systemwide discrimination of minority and women teachers, said Jim Smith, union spokesman.

The California Faculty Association alleges discrimination on every campus in the CSU system, Smith said.

However, vice president of academic personnel at Cal State Long Beach, Gary Reichard,  said, "I see nothing that would indicate discrimination against women."

"It's been a complete boondoggle," said Susan Meisen-helder, president of the CFA.

The union and the Office of the Chancellor are locked in a dispute over whose analysis of the data from the last round of pay raises is correct.

The National Education Association conducted the preliminary analysis of the data for the union, while the CSU is doing its own analysis, officials from both sides said.

All the campuses in the CSU system have turned in all or most of the data from the last round of merit increase program pay raises to the Office of the Chancellor, said Sam Strafaci, senior director of employee relations.

However, union officials bitterly complain that the CSU is recalcitrant about turning in data to the union.

"We've had a terrible time getting data from them," Meisenhelder said.

The union is asking for the merit increase program to be suspended for further study, Meisenhelder said.

The union alleges the program allows administrators to discriminate against women when considering them for pay raises, Smith said. A pattern of discrimination against ethnic minorities also has begun to emerge, he added.

The Office of the Chancellor counters that the Faculty Merit Increase program "is more advantageous to women than it is to men," Strafaci said. Under the merit increase program, women can get a higher raise than they would under a flat rate system that gave everyone an equal raise, he said.

The Faculty Merit Increase program allows college deans and administrators to evaluate the work faculty does throughout the year, such as publishing books and essays or producing research, as well as teaching, Strafaci said.

"Sometimes things happen that are unintentional," said Robert Maxson, CSULB president. Maxson said that any possible discrimination is not intentional, and if it is as a result of a flaw in the merit increase program, then "you fix it."

But, according to the Office of Chancellor's data analysis, women faculty actually received larger raises than men. In 1998, the first year of the Faculty Merit Increase program, 40 percent of applications for awards were from women and all of them won a raise. The average pay raise for women was 2.86 percent in 1998. For men, the average pay raise was 2.85 percent.

Last year, women were 41 percent of program applicants, all of whom received raises. The average raise women received was 2.44 percent and the average raise men received was 2.23 percent, according to Strafaci.

The union disagrees, saying women received fewer and smaller awards than men, Smith said. According to the union, women at Cal State Sacramento received an average of $247 less than men. Women at San Jose State received an average of $111 less, Smith said.

The reason raises translate as lower in dollar figures is because women typically have not been teaching in the CSU system as long as men and, therefore, earn lower base salaries, Strafaci said.

Merit increases are based on the salary a faculty member is earning at the time of the raise, so a 6 percent raise for a faculty member making $50,000 a year is going to be smaller than a 6 percent raise for a faculty member making $60,000 a year.

"It's been a game of catch-up from 10 or 15 years ago when there were fewer women," Reichard said.

With the merit increase program in place, women can receive bigger raises than men if they have been more productive academicians, Strafaci said. The program therefore allows women to catch up to men on the salary scale, he said.

But, after five years of the merit increase program, men are still paid 12.8 percent more than women, according to the union commissioned study done by the NEA.

The average male professor earns $68,934 a year while the average female professor earns $66,824, a difference of $2,110, according to the study.
Faculty has limited opportunity to make an appeal to the administration if they feel the raise they receive is less than they deserve, Meisenhelder said. Five percent of the merit increase pool is set aside for reimbursing faculty who successfully appeal for a bigger raise, which is not enough money to go around, she said.

The appeals process is also limited by the discretion of the administration, Meisenhelder said. The limitations are "not exactly embracing the notion of administration being accountable," she added.

The union will have to wait for an independent mediator to present a compromise to both sides before it will decide whether to return to the negotiating table, Meisenhelder said.