One California State University professor spoke of the “psychic harm” done to workers who were ready to keep fighting for more than they ultimately received. Another noted the unusually high number of union members organizing to reject the tentative agreement struck by their negotiating team. A third wrote that CSU faculty morale “is the lowest I’ve ever seen” in his 13 years on the job.
The California Faculty Association, which called off a strike by its 29,000 members across 23 CSU campuses after a single day last week, clearly has a battle on its hands as it seeks ratification of the one-year contract extension it just agreed to.
But the problem, at its heart, isn’t confined to an intramural union scrimmage. The problem lies with a system through which so many CSU workers, including professors with doctoral degrees and long track records, don’t know what they’ll be earning from one year to the next.
“It’s that word ‘contingent,’” said Leda Ramos, a lecturer and faculty organizer at Cal State L.A. “We’ve been down this road before. We were willing to stay on strike to gain more certainty in our contract, and that’s why so many of us are confused and hurting.”
While the California Faculty Association insisted for months on a one-time, 12% raise to cover years of wage rates that fell behind inflation, it settled with CSU negotiators last week on a 5% raise retroactive to last summer and another 5% bump this coming July. But only the first raise is guaranteed.
The second 5% increase is entirely contingent on the State Legislature not reducing CSU’s base funding from 2023 levels. That is a tactic that CSU has employed before as a hedge against budget tightening, and professors and lecturers across multiple campuses say it’s no way to run a system, especially not in a moment of severe budget deficit.
“We’ve been through this before, when a promised raise got taken off the board because of a state funding mechanism,” Antonio Gallo, a Cal State Northridge lecturer and union local chapter official, told Capital & Main late last year. “Our faculty are already barely making it work on their wages. To think you’re getting a raise and then see it erased — that’s difficult on everybody.”
CSU officials have consistently portrayed the system as one operating at the whim of state budget makers. But a forensic economist concluded last year that CSU is sitting on more than $8 billion in reserves, and top administrators and university officials have enjoyed dramatic salary increases between 2007 and 2022.
The average lecturer at Northridge, meanwhile, is paid roughly $55,000 per year, Gallo said, while teaching classes that have swelled in size from about 30 to 40 or even 45. At Cal State L.A., Ramos teaches a full load of five classes and roughly 200 students, for which she is paid $65,000.
The contingency raise system, Ramos said, has exacted a toll on faculty, many of whom are already on one-year contracts. (That’s true for all CSU lecturers and most other California Faculty Association members, including coaches.) It’s one reason so many members of the union were ready to strike for the scheduled five days last week and even longer — to force CSU to at least give them some cost certainty going forward.
“It’s an academic caste system built to keep people vulnerable,” Ramos said. “CSU has a team of people who look at ways to squeeze us and divide us against one another, and there’s just a real sense of distrust. We’ve got people teaching full loads who still have to pick up outside work to make ends meet.”
The CSU negotiators recently agreed to a tentative contract with the union representing about 1,100 skilled trades workers on its campuses, with the raises and level-ups in salaries guaranteed — no contingencies. It can be done. But to get that, the Teamsters Local 2010 bargained for a year, with several staged protests and two strikes. Before their agreement, they were scheduled to strike alongside California Faculty Association members last week as well.
In the case of the California Faculty Association, its executive board’s decision to call off the strike and agree to this tentative deal has led to strong opposition on multiple campuses. Faculty at San Francisco State rallied last week along with workers from Cal State East Bay and San Jose State University, and an informal poll of San Francisco State University union members found 70% planned to vote no on the contract. Organized opposition has cropped up on most CSU campuses, sources said, and indications are that even if the deal gets the majority vote needed, it won’t be resounding.
Where such a result would leave the union’s leadership is unclear. But with CSU continuing to insist that future faculty raises be tied to the state budget process, and with another negotiation looming to put a new deal in place for 2025, this conversation is just beginning.
“This has caused a lot of real psychic harm to many who were willing to fight for more,” Ramos said. “A lot of people are feeling that we’re not going to see that 5% contingency raise at all. It’s no way to live, and it has to change — however we need to make that change happen.”
