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Fair Pay & Workload for Faculty

Issue Overview

Fair Pay for Faculty

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Humboldt State faculty, students push back against threatened cuts to student instruction

Humboldt CFA Chapter President Renée Byrd took to the public-comment microphone at the CSU Trustees meeting last Wednesday to make a straightforward request: “I’m here to call on you in this room, and the entire CSU system, to help us save public higher education at Humboldt.”

The Humboldt administration has announced a budget shortfall of $9 million, and that a substantial amount must be cut from instruction.

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Faculty power, hard-won gains under attack; CFA members speak out for public higher education

The case Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 is the latest legal threat to the power of working people, including CSU faculty. The case is part of a broader strategy by deep-pocketed political forces to undermine public services, and to erode the common good, including public higher education.

Magazine Article

“Right to Work” is wrong for faculty

They are called “Right to Work” laws, but they are really about “Work for Less.” Court decisions and legislative action in this vein take away the ability of people who work to band together and assert some power over our own working lives.
 

By Dorothy D. Wills
Chair, CFA Membership & Organizing Committee
Geography and Anthropology, Cal Poly Pomona
 

Magazine Article

The CSU needs to respond to the growing crisis in delivering student mental health needs
SPECIAL REPORT: COUNSELORS

By Mimi Bommersbach, Ph.D.
Chair, CFA Counselors Committee
Counseling Faculty, Counseling & Wellness, CSU Chico

Mental health counseling is a critical part of student success in public higher education. Every faculty member in the CSU is witness to increasing stress and pressure on our students from factors outside of our classrooms. And we have a problem on our campuses in trying to meet that challenge—the number of Counselors per student has been declining in Counseling Centers on CSU campuses.

Magazine Article

The new workload problem—deteriorating tenure density

By Dorothy D. Wills
Chair, CFA Membership & Organizing Committee
Geography and Anthropology, Cal Poly Pomona

It is not a secret. We all know. Tenured and tenure-track professors have more work than we used to.

Some of it comes from increased class sizes, which is explained variously as:

(a) A necessary accommodation to decreasing academic budgets (as though the latter were a force of nature rather than a policy decision),

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Join us for Labor Day actions throughout the state

This year, more than ever, it’s important to unite with union brothers and sisters on Labor Day and show our solidarity for working families. You are invited to join in as we march, rally, and take action on Monday, Sept. 4 at Labor Day events throughout the state.

Headline

Tough legislative hearing takes up audit that finds bloated CSU manager pay, hiring

A hard-hitting public hearing of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee at the State Capitol this morning tackled what legislators called “troubling” audit findings.

Headline

Pay raises coming July 1

There is more than one way faculty members may benefit from the salary gains won in the latest faculty collective bargaining agreement, and now is a good time to take note.

On July 1, all faculty on CSU payroll will receive a 3.5% general salary increase (GSI).

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AB 1464 to improve CSU faculty tenure density moves forward in Assembly

On Tuesday, the Assembly Higher Education Committee also took up AB 1464, a bill to increase the composition of CSU faculty to 75 percent tenure-line and a maximum 25 percent contingent.

Headline

CFA joins in national ‘Fight for 15’ Action

CFA members and staff were among the thousands across the nation Tuesday who took to the streets for fair pay and the right to unionize, particularly in fast-food and low-wage industries.

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What do we do with our peacetime?
Lay a foundation for cooperation, now and in the future, to advance the California State University

Remarks to California State University Board of Trustees, September 20, 2016

by Jennifer Eagan, Professor, Philosophy and Public Policy & Administration, CSU East Bay
President, California Faculty Association

Good morning, I’m Jennifer Eagan, President of the California Faculty Association. I’m also a Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy & Administration at Cal State East Bay.

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Solidarity for fellow K-12, university educators

From K-12 to higher education, educators this week are facing lockouts, taking strike votes and walking picket lines in an effort to secure badly needed fair pay, improve working conditions, and protect student learning environments.

CFA stands shoulder to shoulder with all of our colleagues facing these struggles, and has issued statements of support for faculty at Long Island University in New York, faculty in the state university system of Pennsylvania, and Yuba City teachers.

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California State University Board of Trustees to ratify agreement with California Faculty Association
NEWS FROM THE CALIFORNIA FACULTY ASSOCIATION

For Immediate Release: May 24, 2016

  • CFA reminds CSU Trustees: Still more to do to fix broken salary structure
  • CSU still underfunded by the state, needs increased funding to serve students
  • Spending in “The People’s University” needs to focus on mission

On Wednesday, the CSU Board of Trustees will vote to ratify the Tentative Agreement on salary between the California Faculty Association, representing more than 27,000 faculty in the 23-campus California State University system, and the CSU’s management, bringing the two-year long and difficult negotiations to a close.

Headline

Obama, Dept. of Labor extend overtime pay to more workers

New federal rules on overtime pay, announced today by the Department of Labor and President Obama, will make four million more mostly white-collar workers eligible this year including some CSU staff and some faculty, mainly coaches and librarians.

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Illinois faculty need your support

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign non-tenure faculty are striking for two days this week over lack of multi-year contracts for members and the union is asking supporters to sign a petition of support.

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What would the tentative agreement mean for your pay?

Determining what your salary would be under the proposed tentative agreement just got easier thanks to a new online tool.

In just a few clicks, our salary estimator will help faculty calculate their new gross pay, adjusted for the increases allotted in the tentative agreement. The estimator also helps determine SSI-eligibility.

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CFA marches with Fight for $15 Min. Wage

CFA was on the march with the worldwide campaign for higher minimum wages and for working people’s right to unionize.

CFA had contingents and speakers in San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Oakland (in photo).

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Join the National Day of Action for $15 Minimum Wage—April 14

CFA members will be at actions all over California Thursday calling for a $15 minimum hourly wage.  You can join in, too. The main events will happen in Los Angeles and Oakland. See where and when below.

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Factfinding report now public
in dispute between California Faculty Association and California State University management

Report validates union’s proposal of 5% pay raise and Service Step Increases

CSU Faculty now have legal right to strike; Strike set for April 13-15 and 18-19

On Monday March 28, 2016, Factfinder Bonnie Castrey’s report on the stalled negotiations over California State University faculty pay in the second year of the contract became public.

Factfinder Castrey states:

A substantial GSI as well as SSI’s [for the faculty] … is in the interest of students, who need caring faculty and certainly in the public interest as our country needs a well-educated population.

The major recommendations in the Factfinder’s report are:
  1. Increase faculty compensation with a General Salary Increase of 5%.
     
  2. Provide Service Step Increases to the approximately 43% of faculty eligible.
     
  3. Continue to study the faculty salary issue. Develop a list, agreeable to both sides, of comparable universities that award bachelor’s and master’s degrees and do a comparison using available AAUP data and including a cost-of-living comparison.
     
  4. Develop a joint strategy and documentation to go to the California Legislature and the Governor to seek the needed state funding for the CSU budget.

CFA president Jennifer Eagan:

“The factfinder’s report unambiguously supports the union’s bargaining proposal of a 5% pay raise for all CSU faculty and an SSI. A neutral, outside voice has confirmed that these raises are affordable, reasonable, justified, and necessary.”

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CFA activists bring message of CSU faculty pain to Chancellor’s DC visit

The truth about faculty salaries and Chancellor Tim White’s unwillingness to restore faculty salaries and invest in students followed him to Washington, D.C. last week during his breakfast meeting with the California State Society.

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