Tentative deal averts strikes at Sac State, other CSU campuses

After a year of negotiations and brinksmanship, the California Faculty Association and the California State University administration finally came to terms last week on a tentative new agreement that would give faculty a 10.5 percent pay increase over the next three years.

Under the new proposed deal, CFA members, which account for more than 26,000 CSU faculty—including about 1,600 at Sac State—would receive a 5 percent general salary increase in June 2016 and an additional 2 percent in July 2016.

But that’s not all. Faculty would also receive a 3.5 percent increase in July 2017 and, for those who qualify, a 2.65 percent service salary increase in the same year.

The new proposal is a stark contrast to the 2 percent increase the CSU offered earlier this year, just before the CFA scheduled a five-day strike that would have begun April 13 on all 23 campuses.

Despite the higher pay increase, CSU Chancellor Timothy White joined CFA President Jennifer Eagan in professing excitement about the deal.

“The tentative agreement enables all of us to focus our efforts on serving students and spares students the negative impacts of the threatened strikes,” White said in a statement.

For the deal to go through, it must still be approved by the CFA Board of Directors, ratified by its members and finally approved by the CSU Board of trustees.