Last moment reflections as our faculty union goes on strike

It's not complicated.

On Monday, my union goes on strike.

Let’s do this.

Some might say this is a complicated situation. Isn’t it true that every situation is complicated, in the sense that when you examine it closely there are a lot of details?

However, in this situation between the California State University and our faculty, once you look the details, a clear and unambiguous picture emerges: there are drastic undercompensation problems that are undermining educational effectiveness and the research enterprise. The CSU simply cannot be a strong institution when the people doing the work are getting paid below market rate and when pay can’t even keep up with inflation.

University working conditions are student learning conditions.

Faculty are notorious for our perennial complaints about administrative bloat and the high salaries of administrators. I happen to think that some of these complaints tend to be overblown, because I’ve seen lots of cases where the university doesn’t have enough admin people to take care of important business. And I’ve also seen that the increase in pay between faculty and lower-level administrators is actually not that high in our system and to attract genuinely effective faculty into these leadership roles, they need to be paid more. That said, this administrative bloat and overcompensation is a particularly huge problem in the CSU at the moment. While faculty salaries are declining relative to inflation, administrative salaries have grown massively. This isn’t just the faculty’s way of twisting the numbers, it’s what independent journalists and factfinders have concluded as well.

One of the reasons that management is so resistant to giving us anything above a 5% raise (which keeps us behind the inflation rate) is that this gives other unions in the system a mechanism to crack open their recently negotiated contracts to ensure that university staff also get reasonable increases in pay. We are well aware that we’re not just fighting for a pay increase for ourselves, but also for our colleagues across the system that support student success in non-faculty roles. This is important to us too, not only as a matter of equity but also to ensure institutional effectiveness.

I’m just as annoyed and frustrated about staff undercompensation in the CSU as well as faculty pay. From the highly pragmatic standpoint, the staff pay issue is so problematic because it keeps us from getting any stuff done. Some positions in the university are very hard to fill, because the same job at another institution pays much better. And when they do hire someone who doesn’t necessarily have the skillset, what they do is learn the job, and then go somewhere else that pays them what they are worth. I’ve experienced this cycle so many times. The office on our campus that administers grants is a turnstile. Not only do the names change, but the procedures change, the forms change, and the priorities change. Because most people don’t stick around for long, they’re working to cover their own butts and not screw up, and don’t have the chance to develop a community-oriented mindset where we serve one another. As a result, paperwork takes forever to go up the chain, and a 50 cent discrepancy in a travel form will result in hundreds of dollars of human labor just to get the form processed. If we actually paid people what they are worth, then this place would operate so much more smoothly. And I would be able to focus on students instead of administrivia. When we land a contract that reopens bargaining for staff unions, that’s a win for everybody.

But faculty compensation is an issue too, of course, which is what my union is directly fighting for. I’ve had some highly valued colleagues leave simply because they couldn’t afford to stay in this job, and they take faculty positions elsewhere that have higher salary and/or a lower cost of living. We all know that when we take tenure-track positions that we are agreeing to a position that is well underpaid compared to what we would be earning if we take a job in industry, government, consulting, et cetera. We took this job because of the freedom and flexibility, because we get to make a difference in the lives of our students, and because this work is often fun. But when the pandemic has taught us that the freedom and flexibility can be taken away, when there are so many roadblocks to make a difference in the lives of our students, and when we are overweighed with administrative tasks that subtract from the fun of the position, then all of a sudden we find ourselves wondering why we are doing this for less than we could earn elsewhere. The bottom line is that being a professor is not the same plum job that it used to be, and declining pay is making it all the worse.

While we are fighting for a pay increase for all faculty, we are highly prioritizing the baseline salary for those of us who are compensated the least, expecting an increase of $10,000 per year, to a minimum of $64,360. Which especially in California, is the absolutely minimum that a person teaching in the CSU system should be earning if they are working full time, right? We also are expecting an increase in the number of counselors on campus to improve mental health services for students, and for lactation spaces on campus plus gender-inclusive restrooms. We also are seeking expanded parental leave, which currently in our system is an abysmally low 30 days. This is all reasonable, and more over, the university has the money to pay for this.

If you’re available to join us on the picket line next week for even just a few hours, let me know. If you live in California, then there’s a CSU that’s near you, as we’ve got 23 of them throughout the state. Contact someone you know on the faculty and ask when and where to show up. We all know that what happens with this strike will set a precedent for state university systems across the country.