This past Saturday, the California Faculty Association (CFA) walked out of negotiations with the California State University (CSU) after the two sides had resumed bargaining on May 3. CFA rejected CSU’s proposal supposedly without offering any counter-proposals.
CFA representative Brian Ferguson has yet to return the Post’s call for comment. Howeer, CSU Vice Chancellor of Human Resources Gail Brooks said the university is baffled by the union’s behavior. “We are very disappointed that CFA chose to walk out and we were not able to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion,” said Brooks. “It appears to us that the only issue left on the table is the amount of taxpayer dollars that is paid for union leave time for the CFA President and Political Action Committee positions. We have said all along that we want a new contract, and CSU remains willing to continue the negotiation process at any time to resolve these differences.”
Both CSU and the faculty union had agreed to resume negotiations on a number of issues remaining including the appointment and evaluation of temporary faculty and fee waivers for employees and the amount of leave time paid by CSU for union officials.
In their April 6 settlement proposal — prior to CFA’s strike vote — the CFA, in direct contrast to what they had infomred the media of in their press release, proposed to accept maintaining salaries at their current levels, with subsequent re-opening opportunities in the remaining two years of the contract if CSU added a provision to suspend restrictions on concerted activities.
On May 5, CSU presented the faculty union with a settlement proposal that included a negotiated agreement on temporary faculty, evaluations, discipline, as well as extending fee waivers for dependents up to age 25. By making this proposal, CSU believed it had addressed all of the five issues left on the table at the start of the May 3 negotiations. The only exception was that CSU said it would no longer continue to pay for the leave time used by the CFA President and Political Action committee positions to conduct union business.
The next step in the bargaining process is the appointment of a fact-finding panel headed by an outside neutral party who will hear arguments from both sides and then make a recommendation as to the merits of each proposal.