Sac State faculty threatens strike without pay raise

There’s an office on the first floor of Sacramento State’s Brighton Hall, a tiny room where stacks of fliers and papers atop a large table and desk almost climb to the ceiling. It’s a modest little space, yet it houses the California Faculty Association, a powerful group with big plans for an imminent and major strike against the university system that employs them.

The CFA, a union that represents more than 26,000 California State University faculty—including about 1,600 at Sac State—has been in a “wage war” of sorts with the administration in recent years.

Administrators say the pay they’ve offered is sufficient. But the CFA claims that their wages never recovered from belt-tightening during the recession.

Nicki Mehta, a Sac State lecturer and co-chairperson of the CFA’s strike committee, told SN&R that “there’s not been a proper wage increase in nearly eight years.”

The Sac State administration and CSU chancellors would rather spend money on boosting dismal graduation rates, which are a huge problem. A recent budget summary by Gov. Jerry Brown’s office revealed that fewer than 20 percent of full-time CSU freshmen graduate in four years, compared to the 34 percent national average of public universities.

At Sac State, the number of students graduating in four years is 9 percent, the third lowest in the CSU system.

Meanwhile, professors and the CFA claim that part of the reason graduation rates are so bad is because the administration has not invested in teaching. Without better pay and commitment to full-time faculty, they argue that the four-year grad rates will stay as low as 20 percent.

The faculty union has received basic increases that kept up with inflation during contract negotiations in recent years. But now, they’re asking for an actual raise, 5 percent.

Professors point out that their meager salary hikes are in stark contrast to wage bumps for CSU administrators. During the past two years, for instance, 30 of the CSU’s top executives received two pay increases, totaling 5 percent, which brings their average yearly salaries to more than $300,000—this compared to the $45,000 average for faculty.

Another issue for the faculty union is that the CSU system turned to hiring more part-time faculty to help cut costs. They did this to combat a struggling economy that made school funding unpredictable during the recession. But it’s a trend that CSU’s Assistant Vice Chancellor of Public Affairs Laurie Weidner says continues today because it allows “budgetary flexibility.”

Of the more than 47,000 faculty in the CSU system, 54 percent are considered part-time, which is the same percentage at Sac State.

“There isn’t a direct correlation between student outcome and salary,” Weidner said.

To prove that the CSU cares about and wants to invest in improving grad rates, Chancellor Timothy White recently announced the “Graduation Initiative 2025.” One of its goals is to up graduation rates to 24 percent over the next 10 years. The plan, however, isn’t ambitious enough, according to the governor.

CSU administrators also say that low graduation rates misrepresent student success rates. They pointed out that while the number of four-year graduates in the system is grim, the five-year and six-year rates aren’t so bad. In fact, the time it takes for a first-time freshman to obtain a degree is a 4.7 years, an all-time low according to the CSU.

At Sac State, however, the five-year graduation rate for first-time students is 32 percent, and the six-year rate is 46 percent.

“You want to see your graduation rates go up, but yet you’re not investing the money to do that,” Mehta said. “They say they want high-quality educators … but they don’t fund the education programs to get that done.”

Since taking over as president of Sac State last year, Robert Nelsen has maintained a focus on improving graduation rates. When Nelsen spoke with SN&R in October 2015, he mentioned that hiring more full-time faculty, instead of part-time, would enable student success. (Read the interview—“State of Sac State” by Jeff vonKaenel, SN&R News, November 5, 2015—at http://bit.ly/216UYyq.)

Nelsen also recently hired Jim Dragna, a “graduation czar” formerly of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. “What you want from a graduation czar is someone who is both student-centered and data-driven. Jim Dragna is that person,” Nelsen said in a statement regarding the hiring.

But, according to Mehta, the university needs to spend less on facilities and allocate more of what she says are sufficient budget dollars into the classrooms. “If they had a staffing priority and a priority of faculty, then we would see this come to fruition,” Mehta said.

The CFA’s last salary increase came in 2014, when they signed a three-year contract that allowed a 1.6 percent general raise for all faculty in the first year. But the agreement permitted both sides to reopen negotiations in years two and three of the contract—this year being the second. The CFA has asked for a 5 percent increase in salary for several years, which they say will help get them out of the recession-induced pay slump.

But in addition to asking for 5 percent in general salary, the CFA also wants a 1.2 percent salary-recovery adjustment. Weidner says the difference between their ask and the administration’s is $69 million. She explained that, if you count the more than $40 million from the “me too” clause included in other employee groups’ agreements—this allows professors to get the same raise as other CSU faculty unions—the union’s proposal would cost the system $143 million, money that the CSU says would have to be cut from other operating expenses.

The CSU says its offer of 2 percent—a pay increase valued at $33 million—is more than fair.

But according to “Race to the Bottom”—a series of four research papers released by the CFA last spring that examined, among other things, faculty salaries over the last decade—the union says the system has more than enough budget to meet their demands.

A strike in April won’t necessarily mean that the campus closes. Nelsen released a statement saying that, “The strike should not interfere with students being able to complete their courses and graduate on time,” and that Sac State would remain open in case of a work stoppage.

Both sides recently presented their arguments to a neutral third-party during arbitration hearings and now await a report from that group. If the CSU and CFA don’t come to terms following its release, expected sometime this month, the faculty association will strike April 13-15, and 18 and 19.

“[The CFA] board of directors authorized a strike based on an over 94 percent vote with a wide range of possibilities,” CFA Capital Chapter President and Sac State professor Kevin Wehr said. He says if nothing is resolved after the strike, the board “has authorized an escalation.”

The union has gained significant support from labor allies statewide. Strike sanctions have been decided in every region where a CSU campus is located, which means members of different unions won’t cross picket lines.

Although the faculty association has authorized systemwide strikes in the past, it’s never actually occurred. However, faculty have previously held a one-day walk-out on two campuses over proposed budget cuts.

And even if both sides were to agree on a 5 percent salary raise and no strike occurs, there is a possibility this could happen again in 2017. Based on the current contract, negotiations for the 2016-2017 school year begin May 1.