The next phase of negotiation is a fact-finding mission in an attempt to strike a financial compromise, a phase expected to take a few months.
Faculty union leaders say any kind of job action -- either one-day strikes or rolling strikes across all campuses -- will not likely happen until early 2016.
Jennifer Eagan, president of the California Faculty Association, says CSU has been chronically underfunding salaries, and any increase in state funding to the system should go toward instruction.
“The number of tenure-line faculty has decreased by 3 percent, even though the numbers of students have gone up,” Eagan says. “The number of administrators has gone up by 19 percent. So we have fewer faculty and more managers.”
Eagan and other labor leaders also cite data that show some public school teachers in certain parts of California are actually making more money than some CSU faculty members.
CSU administration officials say the 2 percent increase is as much as they can afford, given all the competing interests such as hiring new faculty, technology and facility upgrades, and better student services.
The Chancellor's Office also argues that the additional $97 million was never meant for faculty raises.
“That extra $97 million was designated to improve the number of students that we could accept in our system,” says Laurie Weidner, CSU assistant vice chancellor of public affairs. “We were able to accept 2 percent more students, which is approximately 12,300 more transfer students and more students across the state because of that funding.”
