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California State University faculty members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike in their battle over a pay dispute.
Members of the California Faculty Association voted 94.4 percent in favor of a strike if their request for a five percent pay increase is not met, association officials announced Wednesday during a news conference at Cal State San Jose.
A strike could be called as soon as early next year. The association, which represents approximately 26,000 members, is currently putting together a report that will detail why it believes their requested pay increase is justified.
Union officials plan to present that report to the chancellor’s office for a review by an independent panel. They have scheduled a rally for Nov. 17 at the chancellor’s office in Long Beach.
Both sides have been negotiating for about five months. Cal State officials are proposing a two percent raise, which union officials have called unacceptable and not even large enough to keep up with cost-of-living increases.
“Our faculty members are angry, and rightly so,” said Jennifer Eagan, president of the California Faculty Association and a professor of philosophy and public policy at Cal State East Bay. “This fight is about the bread-and-butter issue of salary, but it’s really about more than that. It’s about the future of the Cal State system and how it’s going to be run. They want to run it like a business.”
No one should have been surprised that so many faculty members voted to strike, said Marcia Marx, president of the faculty association chapter at Cal State San Bernardino.
“I would say the feeling of anger [Eagan] described certainly applies to our campus,” Marx said. “There’s very low morale, and a feeling that the people running the Cal State system don’t have any respect for what we do.”
In a statement released shortly after the news conference, the chancellor’s office said it “remains committed to the collective bargaining process and reaching a negotiated settlement with the California Faculty Association.”
