CFA Ends Mediation over the TPM Policy

After CSU management notified CFA members, our union siblings, students, and employees of their intent to implement the interim Time, Place and Manner (TPM) policy in the CSU, our members demanded to bargain. This policy came out following a year of highly visible union activities that led up to and included historic strikes on all 23 campus and other protest activity connected to the genocide in Gaza. In addition to the TPM policy, CSU management put out “Guidance on Other Conduct of Concern” and a “Directive” that further elucidated Chancellor García’s interest in tamping down faculty speech. 

For our part, we demanded to bargain over the TPM policy just like we bargain over changes in terms and conditions of employment in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The policy touches on academic freedom and constitutional rights in ways that would result in fewer rights for faculty than they enjoyed before the policy came out. 

In bargaining over the policy, led by outside counsel, we insisted on changes to the policy to address: proximity of counter protestors (to the events they are counter protesting); registration requirements (for things the union does all the time like tabling, picketing, etc.); the opportunity for spontaneous speech and actions (more important in these times of daily federal actions that harm immigrants and educators); objective criteria for advanced registration when it is required; a constitutionally sound definition of “disruption;” student discipline; and limits on faculty discipline for non-violet civil disobedience. The union also looked to management to supply a template for narrow and objective standards for the 23 campuses developing addendum. As CFA President Margarita Berta-Ávila explained, “Narrow and objective standards are especially necessary when campus, left to their own design, come up with things like CSU Long Beach did in requiring that any sign posted in public be in English only. We simply cannot trust the various campuses to consistently apply standards of free speech and academic freedom or decide on union rights on a case-by-case basis.” 

After failing to reach an agreement with management at the end of last spring, we declared impasse to the California Public Employment Board (PERB). Impasse requires a mediation stage, and we concluded that stage on Tuesday, October 21, as management refused to make the changes we require. The PERB appointed mediator will send us forward to the next bargaining stage of fact finding on this policy and CFA’s opposition to it. And to complicate things further, other CSU unions are in unfair practice litigation over the TPM policy.  

Given the complexity and moving parts of CSU management’s constant bombardment of policies, rules, and disregard for faculty, we do not expect to rush into factfinding, but we will keep faculty posted as this develops.