SACRAMENTO – Today, International Workers Day – the California Faculty Association is announcing that we will be reopening portions of our 2022-24 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA); workload, paid leave, salary, and health and safety.

“With this announcement, we are initiating our fight for a better CSU for all of our Unit 3 members, including those most precariously and historically marginalized,” said CFA President Charles Toombs. “This bargaining campaign will center our most vulnerable faculty and address long-standing inequities experienced by many members, an expanded and strengthened parental leave policy and a vision for community safety rooted in our anti-racism and social justice principles.” 

CFA is part of the national wave of higher education organizing and activism by faculty, staff, and students. CFA will be bargaining for significantly better salaries, working conditions, and learning spaces.

“We know that our members feel taken advantage of, exhausted, and disrespected,” said Meghan O’Donnell Associate Vice President of Lecturers, North. “This is why we have a union, to organize collectively and fight for a CSU we can all be proud of. “

At the May 22-24 CSU Board of Trustees meeting, the California Faculty Association will formally announce that we will be bargaining with CSU management on Articles 20, 23, 31, and 37.

During reopener bargaining, we aim to:  

  • Improve salaries at all ranks and in all ranges. Our members expect no less than 12% across the board General Salary Increases to address the loss of earning power of the faculty due to inflation and the high cost of living we have experienced in the last couple of years. We will propose other salary increases that promote equity for long-serving faculty and ensure that the lowest paid faculty see meaningful corrections to an antiquated salary structure that compensates even full-time lecturers with salaries that do not reach K-12 or community college teacher salary levels in California. Further we will seek an increase in the supplemental pay to department chairs that has not changed in at least twenty years.
  • Define workload for all faculty based on pedagogically appropriate class sizes, professionally recognized counselor to student ratios, contemporary librarian responsibilities, and coaching duties (both on and off the field). We will also propose contract language that mandates compensation for research, scholarship, creative activities, and service.
  • Improve paid leaves of absence for new parents to a full semester or two quarters of leave for the arrival of a new child in the home. Additionally, we will seek crisis leave for situations that are not currently addressed in the CBA.
  • Provide for campus safety, particularly for marginalized faculty, students, and staff. Specifically, the union will propose changes to the CBA to better ensure faculty participation in health and safety enforcement and overall faculty and community wellbeing. At the bargaining table, we will propose that all campuses have safe restrooms and changing rooms for queer and trans faculty as well as designated lactation spaces for nursing parents.

CFA leaders are available to speak with members of the media. To schedule an interview, please contact Michelle Hatfield at 916-612-8779, Filiberto Nolasco Gomez at 916-502-0023, or Lisa Cohen at‪ 310-395-2544.

ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA FACULTY ASSOCIATION: CFA represents more than 29,000 tenure-line instructional faculty, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches on the 23 campuses of the California State University system, from Cal Poly Humboldt in the north, to San Diego State in the south. Learn more about CFA at calfac.org and visit our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.

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