Members Hold Faculty Rights Meeting at Long Beach

Last week, faculty rights advocates from all 23 campuses gathered on the CSU Long Beach campus to train on various topics of the Collective Bargaining Agreement including enforcing lecturer appointment rights, filing grievances over excessive and unreasonable workloads, and understanding the CSU salary structure.

We also discussed ways to fight against to austerity budget cuts, and we reviewed developments in our opposition to Chancellor’s new Time, Place, and Manner rules.

“It was invigorating to be together in person with both new and experienced faculty rights advocates learning to defend our hard-won contractual wins,” said Molly Talcott, CFA Representation Committee Chair and CSU Los Angeles Professor. “Our meeting was not only a site of needed training by our excellent CFA representation staff, but also a space of organizing, given that many challenges we face — the CSU’s flawed austerity alibi, inequities within and across our campuses, and injustices that don’t line up as clear contract violations — are in need of creative interventions. I know we faculty rights advocates will be taking our ideas for both contract enforcement and organizing back to our chapters, for campaigns forming during this academic year.”

CFA Faculty Rights leaders come together like this twice a year, and these meetings provide member leaders the opportunity to coordinate with unionists from all over the state and to refine skills in advocating for our members.