The California Faculty Association (CFA)—the group which represents some 23,000 professors and employees of the California State University (CSU) system—voted overwhelmingly to support a new contract that was tentatively proposed in late July. Members began voting on the proposed deal August 13 and the 91 percent in-favor vote will now move to CSU Board of Trustees for final approval.
“The final agreement has produced a balanced, good contract in light of difficult times,” CFA President Lillian Taiz stated in a release. “It acknowledges years of slashed public funding for the CSU and the real needs of the people teaching our students.”
John Swarbrick, Associate Vice Chancellor with Labor Relations of the CSU, gave the following statement regarding the proposal: “We are pleased that CFA’s membership has voted to ratify the Tentative Agreement. At the start of these negotiations, CSU outlined its bargaining objectives in terms of seeking changes that would promote academic quality and procedural clarity. We believe that this agreement, particularly in relation to the changes made to faculty appointments, evaluations, and payment for low enrolled summer courses, represents positive progress on both issues.”
The contract, which will run through to June of 2014, has no salary increases for the previous and current academic years, but leaves open the possibility of renegotiating salary and benefits in the following two years. CSU also has the ability to reopen talks, as early as October, if state funding fails to improve or gets worse.
However, the contract’s most plausible aspect—and the largest victory for CFA—lies in its public openness, where the unilateral power of the Chancellor’s office has been limited and “for-profit” courses, commonly referred to as Extended Education, are more difficult to shift into.
“In no way does this contract solve all the problems our university, our faculty and our students face to get the CSU back on track. But it is a necessary step at this moment and in ratifying this contract, our members are taking a stand for quality, accessible, affordable public higher education—for the mission of the California State University,” Taiz said.
The Board of Trustees is expected to vote during their September 18 and 19 meeting.