The California Faculty Association (CFA) voted to authorize a strike if salary negotiations with the Cal State University (CSU) system fail.
The CFA board has unanimously voted to authorize a one-day strike at CSU East Bay and CSU Dominguez Hills on Nov. 17.
Here’s what faculty and students had to say about the decision.
Economics freshman Gabriel Klepper: “I am glad that they went through with the strike, and I hope they do get their raise. As an Econ major, with inflation 2% is not enough to keep up with inflation so they’re losing money by continuing to work for the CSU system. Three percent is breaking even, and 5% is pretty fair.”
Business administration junior Hakeem Sanusi: “In regards to what I’ve just heard with administration wages and salary going up and teachers wages and salary staying stagnant, I do think that administration are people who should be valued. But I also think that faculty should be equally valued or even more valued because those are really the people that the students depend on and the school depends on for the future. Because if you don’t have good faculty and you don’t have faculty that are happy and that are well paid, then how can you expect our students to do well and to learn to their full potential when the teacher cant work to his or her full potential. So I think that, all in all, its important to have faculty who are paid honestly what they deserve because they’re underpaid for the value that they give the students, which is an education that they will carry for the rest of their lives.”
Philosophy professor Stephen Ball: “I don’t feel underpaid personally. I do think there’s an equity issue because a lot of the CSU faculty salaries were frozen, the president’s jumped up. And was he underpaid before? I’d like to see that. Also there’s a problem with the community college faculty. Just because they belong to a different union? So, I think there are equity issues. But no, I didn’t vote to strike.”
History lecturer Cameron Jones: “I know that we’ve authorized a strike, doesn’t mean we will strike. They’re still in arbitration, I believe is the point they’re at. Traditionally what’s happened at this point, my understanding is they’ve usually negotiated something after they’ve voted for a strike. That’s what I’m hoping happens. I really don’t want to cause hardship to the students, so I’m hoping that’s what happens. But, you know we will go on strike if that’s necessary.”
Mechanical engineering senior Sam Tucker: “All I know really is about the administration here and the difference between the business – I believe the Cal Poly Corporation or the university’s administration – and the faculty and the fact that there’s a lot of people that get paid who aren’t actually teaching a lot more money than say President Armstrong or essentially everyone who works in building 1, the office building. Everyone who doesn’t teach gets paid a lot more than the people who actually do a lot of work. And so it’s kind of like a 1% percent fad, or a similar trend. So in terms of that, that’s not cool.”
