By Daniel Rivera
On Jan. 22, Monday night and after just day of protests across the California State University system announced that it and the California Faculty Association or CFA came to a controversial tentative agreement.
The CFA had voted last fall to go on its first-ever statewide strike involving all the campuses and the vast majority of the faculty over five days near the end of January. Some of the concerns revolved around raises, parental leave, lactation spaces, and classroom sizes.
With a tentative agreement reached, the union plans on hosting a town hall on Thursday, Jan. 25 to provide members with more information before they vote to ratify the agreement. Though controversial among the union’s members, the proposed new contract would raise the lowest wages by raising anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 while others would only see the 5% raise from the CSU initial offer.
“It’s not 5%. It’s a more complicated offer they are giving us― 5% for July 2023, retroactive to that, and 5% for July 2024,” CFA Co-President La Tanya Skiffer told Random Lengths News the day after the tentative announcement. She goes on to explain that many of the demands were met including wage increases.
“[The] lowest paid lecturers, lecturer range A and range B would be getting substantial raises putting them up to 66k and 75k a year,” Skiffer said.However, she admits that compromises were made.
“On class sizes, we didn’t make big moves… we are agreeing to our old policy on that,” she explained.
The raises provided to management remain around 30% with the CSU chancellor gaining a nearly $1 million compensation consisting of wages and allowances for housing and auto. The deal is controversial with many members of the union.
“What I’ve been hearing is that [faculty] aren’t happy with it and I’m also not happy with it. I think we could’ve held out for more,” Dr. Alfredo Carlos, another CFA Co-president told RLN.
The announcement regarding the tentative agreement was made on the first night of what was originally a 5-day strike. This strike would be the first of its time, at this scale as previous strikes were usually one day and limited to one or two campuses.
“Whereas in the past, the chancellor’s office has always been pretty reasonable, where we don’t get what we want and they don’t get what they want, this time the chancellor’s office has not budged at all, and unwilling to give a wage that wouldn’t even cover inflation,” said English professor Norbert Schurer, who has been with the college for 21 years.
Before the strike was due to start, the CSU sent out emails to its students requesting that they report the classes and teachers that might be missing. While some students see this as a week off, others see it as a call to action and as a form of retaliation against faculty.
“They sent out an email to report any missing classes, the reasoning was very strange, they said it was to ensure thwart we get the education, by pitching students against the faculty by saying that the faculty don’t care about us,” Natalie Mazzone, a student with LAFuerza told RLN.
Students can see how spread out their teachers are, with many teachers taking on multiple classes across multiple campuses being a common story across the picket lines.
“I feel pretty understanding, they have over 400 people a semester, they have life and personal obligations, and they are doing their best,” Daniela, a fifth-year student in sociology told RLN.
Teachers repeat and carry signs, “Working conditions are learning conditions.” Some teachers do not see themselves remaining at the campus over the long term if these rates remain the same.
“I was shocked when I saw what the pay was,” Alyssia Dwyer, filmmaker and editing professor told RLN. She explains that she is teaching her first semester at Cal State Long Beach, she previously taught at USC and UC Santa Cruz, she goes on to explain her love for the students and her impact on them but can’t see herself staying at the current rates of raises.
Many professors when asked why they wanted to be teachers, it was usually for the impact they can have on their communities and their students.
They fight against workloads that make it impossible to truly focus on a handful of classes, it has an impact in the form of availability and one-on-one assistance leaving students to seek out alternatives like services and student-led efforts.
CSULB and CSUDH where the quotes were pulled from were reached out to for comment and as of this writing, there has been no response.