Members Vote on the Tentative Agreement

Ratification voting opened Monday on our reopener Tentative Agreement.

After eight months of reopener bargaining on five of the 41 Articles in our Collective Bargaining Agreement and two strikes, our CFA Bargaining Team achieved a Tentative Agreement (TA). Your CFA Board of Directors voted overwhelmingly to move the TA to membership for ratification.

“A yes vote on this Tentative Agreement means progressive movement in areas of our contract that haven’t moved in a very long time.  A no vote on this TA would give away everything that we forced the CSU to put on the table. Once given away, there are no guarantees that we would get them back. CSU management would be unlikely to come back to the table, and we would have to go back to bargaining this summer in a significantly weakened position,” said Jennifer Eagan, CFA East Bay member and CSU East Bay Professor. “This agreement would move approximately $350 million dollars of real money from CSU management’s coffers to the pockets of faculty members.” 

CFA San Luis Obispo Lecturer Representative Tad Walters has been explaining the TA details to his colleagues over the last several weeks.

“This agreement would move approximately $350 million dollars of real money from CSU management’s coffers to the pockets of faculty members.” 

– Jennifer Eagan, CFA East Bay member

“As a lecturer who was at the bottom of salary Range A, performing uncompensated service for most of my 17 years at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I’m voting to approve the Tentative Agreement. Our recognition of the plight of lecturers in our original bargaining proposals and now in the Tentative Agreement that improve our pay, compensate us with assigned time for our service, and extend range elevation eligibility so that we don’t have to live at or below the poverty line is social justice in action,” said Walters, also a CFA Board of Directors member, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Lecturer. 

By voting ‘Yes’ on the Tentative Agreement, we will receive everything that is in the accepted terms of the agreement. The terms of the TA include:

• 10-percent salary increase for all faculty by July 1, 2024: 5-percent increase retroactive to July 1, 2023, with an additional 5-percent increase on July 1, 2024 (contingent on there not being an overall cut to CSU’s base funding from the state, which last happened in 2008).
• Raising the salary floor for our lowest-paid faculty in salary Ranges A and B:
• Increasing paid parental leave from 6 to 10 weeks (a 67% increase in paid leave).
• Adding first-time contract language that acknowledges the importance of moving all campuses to a 1,500:1 students-to-counselor ratio (a ratio recommended by the International Accreditation of Counseling Services). CSU management has consistently disregarded the legitimacy of the ratio and the life-altering impact it would have on students.
• First-time contract language establishing a funded pool of assigned time for lecturers who provide service to their university.
• First-time contract language establishing rights and protection for faculty who are interviewed or approached by police.
• First-time contract language regarding access to gender-inclusive restrooms and lactation spaces, and a process to monitor issues of access and adequacy.

By voting ‘No,’ we reject the terms of the Tentative Agreement and return to the state of imposition. With a return to imposition, we would continue to advocate for a better agreement, though CSU management is not obligated to return to the bargaining table. Imposition would move forward while faculty could consider future work actions. See a comparison chart of the Tentative Agreement and CSU management’s imposition terms.

CSU Stanislaus Professor and Department Chair Ann Strahm will be voting yes on the TA.

“As I engage my colleagues, I urge them to vote because this Tentative Agreement’s expansion of parental leave is important to many fellow faculty right now. I also urge a yes vote because the policing, workload, and appropriate counselor-to-student ratios language that will now be in our contract is essential as we work to move the CSU forward to be more inclusive to everyone. I’ve had my lecturer and tenure-track colleagues drop into my office, stop me in hallways and in our campus quad, and express appreciation that we’re lifting the salary floor for themselves and their colleagues in Ranges A and B,” said Strahm, CFA Stanislaus Vice President and Sociology, Gerontology, and Gender Studies Department Chair at CSU Stanislaus. “I’m voting yes on this Tentative Agreement because of the social and economic justice it brings to our faculty. I am voting yes because of what it tells our students they can demand for themselves at their own workplaces, too.” 

Find Tentative Agreement resources at www.calfac.org/tentative-agreement.