A neutral third-party "Fact-Finder" has issued a Report and Recommendations regarding the unpaid salary increases that were negotiated for 2009-10, and once again, a third party Fact-Finder has disagreed with the Chancellor's approach and positions.
CFA has prepared a statement on the report that is re-printed further down in this message.
To chart our next steps in contract bargaining, we will soon be sending out information about a Statewide Contract Bargaining E-Summit that will take place on campus next Wednesday, September 28.
Statement from
CFA regarding Fact-Finder's Report
For the third time in a row, a neutral fact-finder has disagreed
with the Chancellor's approach and positions in bargaining with
the faculty. Reed's insistence that the university is broke and,
therefore, can offer nothing to the faculty is simply not
persuasive. He has failed to convince yet another outside party
charged with examining the facts in bargaining disputes between
the CSU administration and CFA.
In his report released on Friday, neutral third-party fact-finder Philip Tamoush, recommended a way to settle "reopener" talks on faculty raises negotiated for the 2009/10 academic year. As in 2008/09, the Chancellor again refused to pay any part of the raises previously negotiated.
After assessing four sessions of live testimony as well as written arguments and other documents, Tamoush rejected the Chancellor's rationale for paying zero General Salary Increases, Service Step Increases and Equity Pay in the year 2009/1010. Convinced the Chancellor has some funds at his disposal, he recommended a very modest CFA proposal in the hopes that the Chancellor would accept even a small solution to honor -- at least in part -- a contract he had negotiated.
Reed would not.
Moreover, in the administration's dissent from Tamoush's recommendations, the Chancellor's representative attacked the neutral fact-finder with a stunning display of incivility that provides insight into the Chancellor's general approach to bargaining.
In a letter to all CSU employees on Friday, CSU Vice Chancellor Gail Brooks continued that attack on the neutral fact-finder while trying to set other CSU employees and students against faculty members.
Her letter, coupled with the CSU administration's rejection of the fact-reminder's recommendations, suggests that the Chancellor intends to unilaterally impose his position of no salary increases for 2009/10. In that instance, Article 9: Concerted Activities in the faculty contract is suspended, meaning the faculty has the right to strike.
We are not surprised at the Chancellor's actions. Rather than use the fact-finder's report to reach a settlement with the faculty, the Chancellor spent his summer hiking student fees, giving pay raises to executives, and demanding take-backs from all employee groups currently at the bargaining table.
The Chancellor's priorities are clear -- the executives and managers closest to him get more, faculty and other employees get less, and students get their pockets turned inside out.
What remains to be seen is what we all will do about it.
We have tried presenting arguments and facts at the table and that didn't work. We have won the case through facts and arguments in fact-finding -- the final phase of the bargaining process. It is time for action. We'll be talking about the kind of action we must take during the Statewide Bargaining e-Summit which will be held on your campus September 28. This meeting will provide an opportunity to connect electronically faculty members at all 23 campuses with CFA officers and to work with your colleagues on plans to ratchet up the pressure on the Chancellor.
We're all in this together.
