Alice Sunshine is Communications Director at the California Faculty Association, which represents 23,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches who teach in the California State University system.
yesterday announced that a tentative agreement between the union and the management of the California State University has been ratified by CFA members on all 23 CSU campuses. The vote was 91% in favor of ratification.
CFA President Lillian Taiz, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles, congratulated the thousands of members who voted, as well as the union bargaining team that was at the table for more than two years. They participated in strike votes and picket lines, spreading the message about the tough challenges to keeping California’s public higher education system open and available to working families.
The California State University Trustees were meeting inside, first in closed session to discuss “executive personnel matters” and collective bargaining. Then they met in committee on yet another new policy to give more raises to campus presidents, now from university auxiliaries.
Meantime, 150 faculty from 20 campuses all over California protested outside. The faculty made a strong pitch that the CSU Trustees and management need to adopt policies that put instruction and student services first, and to settle a fair contract with the faculty.
The protest outside the Trustees meeting was held just a week after the California Faculty Association announced a 95% member vote to authorize rolling two-day strikes through the California State University's 23 campuses if bargaining fails to get a settlement. The strike would affect some 400,000 students.
