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Following more than six months of unsuccessful labor negotiations with California State University’s (CSU) leadership, the California Faculty Association (CFA) Board of Directors unanimously voted this week to call for a system-wide five-day strike, in partnership with Teamsters Local 2010 members, at the start of the Spring 2024 semester.

The CFA represents nearly 600 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches at Cal Poly Humboldt, and more than 29,000 faculty across CSU’s 23 campuses. If the union can’t reach an agreement with CSU in the coming weeks, the vast majority of its members will cancel classes from Jan. 22 to Jan. 26.

“We really hope that CSU’s leadership comes to their senses and agrees to our reasonable demands because nobody wants this disruption. Nobody wants to go on strike,” local CFA field representative Maureen Loughran told the Outpost in a recent phone interview. “We don’t understand why they’re causing this harm to the students. The ball is in their court. They can stop this anytime, and we hope that they do.”

At the beginning of this month, CFA members shut down the CSU campuses in Los Angeles, Pomona, Sacramento and San Francisco to call for an immediate 12 percent salary increase to catch up with inflation.

The current negotiation process is a “reopener,” Loughran said, meaning CFA’s bargaining team is still fighting for pay increases for the current academic year. 

“We’re negotiating over a contract that is already in place because we weren’t able to agree when we settled that contract on the last year’s pay increases and a few other items,” Loughran said. “We’re reopening [negotiations] on salary, workload, benefits, health and safety. Since May, the CSU hasn’t moved much from their initial offer.”

The CSU has offered all faculty a 15 percent general salary increase, which would increase in five percent increments over three years. CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith noted that the proposed increases in 2024 and 2025 would “depend only on the state honoring the financial commitments that it made in its current multi-year compact with the CSU.”

Some faculty would receive 20.3 percent increases over a three-year period under the proposed agreement. CSU’s leadership has also offered a post-promotion increase of 2.65 percent in fiscal year 2024-25 and a 2.65 percent service salary increase in fiscal year 2025-26.

“The CSU has also proposed supporting recommendations put forth by the independent factfinder that was brought in as part of the bargaining process,” Bentley-Smith wrote in an email to the Outpost. “That included an increase to paid parental leave from the current six weeks to eight weeks and increasing paid workload reduction from 40 percent to 60 percent for one semester (in lieu of the eight weeks).”

The CFA is also asking for a $10,0000 wage increase for the lowest-paid faculty. “Our [lecturers] who don’t have a PhD are paid $54,000 a year for full-time work. We’re asking for that minimum to be raised to $64,000 annually,” she said. “The minimum pay for lecturers with a PhD is $64,000. We’re asking to raise their annual salary to $69,000. We don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

There’s still time for a resolution. The CFA bargaining team will meet with CSU management during the second week of January. “We’re planning for the worst but hoping for the best,” Loughran said.

“It’s my greatest hope that the CSU does what’s right and averts the strike by meeting our demands,” she said. “But we will shut it down system-wide as a CSU if they don’t settle with us. It’s going to be a ghost town. It’s not going to feel like a university. We hope that [the threat of a strike] puts pressure on the CSU to do the right thing.”

Bentley-Smith said the CSU is also eager to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

“[W]e are prepared to negotiate with CFA at any time to reach an agreement to increase faculty salaries,” she said. “On other issues, CSU is prepared to agree to nearly all of the recommendations of the independent fact finder to reach a resolution. If strikes do occur in January, we hope to minimize any disruptions to our students.” 

Reached for additional comment on the matter, Cal Poly Humboldt spokesperson Grant Scott-Goforth offered the following statement: “As a university community, we share a commitment to providing a positive educational experience for our students, and Cal Poly Humboldt values the important work our employees do every day to make this possible.”