The California Faculty Association leadership failed its members, miserably. From the break of dawn to dusk on Monday, January 22, out in heavy rain, the union’s energized rank-and-file picketed and withheld their labor from the California State University, the largest college system in the nation. I witnessed this gritty solidarity firsthand at my campus, CSU Channel Islands. Systemwide, my union brothers, sisters, and theys were not going to be denied their fundamental, yet modest, demands for an un-contingent 12% general salary increase, the healthy elevation of the wage floor for the lowest paid lecturers, a full semester of parental leave, a lower student-to-counselor ratio, and other improved work conditions.
Increased state funding and CSU reserve monies in the billions can easily cover this into the future, and without raising student tuition.
The CSU, instead, punked their CFA counterparts during the bargaining process; in fact, management cavalierly marched out of talks on January 9 with a “take our 5% raise or leave it!” insolence. Repeatedly insulted by CSU management’s hardball tactics and a let-them-eat-cake mien, counselors, faculty, and librarians—struggling to maintain a competence for their families—were angry and were not going to take it anymore. So, we went on strike.
On my campus, after a break from the picket line to listen to rallying speeches, we took turns smashing a “CSU Pig” piñata filled with PAYDAY and 100GRAND candy bars. Many unleashed pent-up anger that has been mounting even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapid, repeated blows upon the capitalist “CSU Pig” by my usually reserved colleagues represented years of exploitation that entailed high instructional loads; energy draining institutional service; and a steady and admirable production of creative and scholarly work that affirms the role faculty as academicians. Hence, the CFA rank-and-file was fully committed to strike for the five days planned and more, if required, to win their demands.
Sensing a humiliating defeat, the capos of the CSU blinked the Sunday before the job action with an unsecured 10% general salary increase. What angers the union rank-and-file is instead of gifting concessions, CFA interlocutors should have leveraged the militancy of its rank-and-file to gain nothing less than what they originally demanded, if not more, before calling off the strike. Giving up the guaranteed 12% general salary increase, the union’s brass ring demand, deflated fighting-mad workers and represented the effete composition of the CFA leadership.
After the receipt of Monday evening CSU and CFA emails that announced the end of the strike with a tentative agreement, I quickly received text messages and social media communications from colleagues expressing confusion and fury that we did not achieve all our demands. Instead of winning decisively, the CFA leadership agreed to a 10% general salary increase, contingent on the outcome of the next state budget cycle. A bargaining sticking point from the start of negotiations.
Moreover, the end of the strike, less than 24 hours from when it started, also dumbfounded many students. Prepared to support their professors, many asked why it concluded so quickly. One student expressed to me that it was clear to him that the CFA negotiators identified with the interests of CSU managers more than with the people they represented.
This capitulation reminds me of the threatened CFA action of 2017. Right before we were to go on strike the CSU also flinched. Instead of winning all we demanded, the CFA bargaining team gave up key points. One labor scholar, United Farm Worker union veteran, and comrade at CSU Monterey Bay expressed to me then “Frank, our union should have gone on strike at least for one day to get all we fought for.” This would have made the CSU fear us into the future, as Machiavelli advised.
Therefore, when the CSU can afford to pay its chancellor a $795,000 base salary with a $96,000 housing and $12,000 car allowance, and campus presidents paid up to $530,000 with the same perks, our CFA bargainers squandered the zeal and resolve of its members to achieve a total victory. Indeed, this time around, we needed to strike for at least three days to express with moxie our humanity as workers.
Ultimately, cunning CSU lawyer-negotiators outmatched those of the CFA. And now it seems that CSU management, to inflict a coup de grace, has allied with a union buster company as many disappointed faculty have received communications, via U.S. Mail and electronically, encouraging them to not waste their money paying dues to such an ineffective union.
Rather than leave their union, however, resolute members systemwide have commenced organizing a “No on the Tentative Agreement” campaign. In a recent rank-and-file remote meeting, faculty at the larger campuses in the system at San Francisco State, Cal State Los Angeles, and CSU Long Beach reported that up to 80% of its CFA chapter membership support a no vote on the tentative agreement. On my campus, many of my colleagues have expressed the same position.
We will see. Meanwhile, the CFA needs to recognize and learn from its mistakes.