Faculty at Cal State LA held a one-day strike on Wednesday, demanding higher pay and extended benefits, during the final week of instruction in the fall semester.
Around 300 people filled the picket lines, many wearing red and carrying “on strike” signs. Some were union faculty members who traveled from other campuses, including Cal State San Marcos and Cal State Fresno.
“This is about justice,” said Rafael Gomez, a Cal State LA lecturer in the Latin American and Pan-African studies departments. “We want to ensure people are paid dignified wages that allow them to live dignified lives.”
Faculty spent the previous weeks warning students that classes could be canceled due to the walkout. Jaeline Becerra, a second-year biology student, said “a little bit of studying might get disrupted” after one of the lectures she planned to attend was canceled.
A flier announcing the Cal State LA strike was posted in a parking lot on campus. Photo by Megan Jamerson/KCRW.
The CSULA walkout is the third of four rolling strikes that began earlier this week at Cal Poly Pomona and San Francisco State, and will conclude December 7 at Sacramento State. The California Faculty Association (CFA), which represents 29,000 CSU professors, lecturers, librarians, and coaches statewide, is at an impasse with the 23-campus CSU system over a contract for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Cal State Northridge Professor Theresa Montaño, an alumna of Cal State LA, said she decided to strike to ensure the next generation of students and teachers have a future within the nation’s largest four-year public university system.
“This university gave me hope. It brought me out of poverty,” Montaño said.
The faculty union is demanding a 12% one-year raise. The Cal State system has countered with a 5% raise in each of the next three years. “Any larger salary increases would force very difficult and painful decisions on our campuses,” said Leora Freedman, vice chancellor for human resources at the Cal State system, during a December 1 virtual press conference.
According to Freedman, a 12% raise would amount to $380 million in new recurring costs, larger than the $356 million budget of campuses like Cal State Fresno.
The union said it rejected the latest Cal State system’s offer because it would guarantee a 5% raise for only the first year of the agreement. Thereafter the raises would be contingent on the state funding.
The union has also been critical of the Cal State system’s choice to increase executive pay. Some campus presidents received a 29% raise last year, far outpacing gains to professor and lecturer salaries, according to a Cal Matters analysis. The chancellor of the CSU also has a base pay of $795,000, with a total of about $1 million when housing and other perks are added in.
Meanwhile an independent state mediator recommended a 7% raise for Cal State faculty. Neither side has said it is considering that option.
Faculty are also asking for caps on class sizes; extended paid parental leave; more gender inclusive bathrooms; mental health services; and an increase in the lecturer salaries minimum from $54,360 to $64,860. The Cal State system has not addressed raising the minimum salary for lecturers in negotiations.
Maria Del Carmen Unda is a lecturer in the Chicana(o) and Latina(o) studies department at Cal State LA, who recently finished a PhD program. She said after taxes, she takes home $38,000 a year. “I just really literally want to be able to afford rent for a one-bedroom apartment here,” said Del Carmen Unda. “I'm just asking you for a living wage.”
Faculty union president Anthony Ratcliff said the union is prepared to hold firm on their demands into the 2024 spring term. Out of 23 campuses, only four have gone on strike, he said, leaving the union with room for escalation.
“This is not the culmination. This is really the beginning,” said Ratcliff.