Cal State teachers may strike this spring

California State University faculty are preparing for a five-day strike.

Members of the California Faculty Association voted this weekend to walk off the job April 13-15 and April 18-19, Marcia Marx, president of the faculty association’s chapter at Cal State San Bernardino, said Monday.

The faculty association, which represents all faculty, instructors, counselors and librarians in the Cal State system, voted overwhelming last October to strike regarding their request for a five percent pay raise.

The Cal State Chancellor’s office is offering a two percent increase, which union members have called unacceptable. The weekend vote is the first time the faculty association, which has approximately 26,000 members on 23 Cal State campuses, has set specific strike dates.

At this point, only a better offer from the Chancellor’s office in Long Beach will avoid a walkout, Marx said.

“Our position is that we don’t want to strike but we will if we have to,” said Marx, a sociology instructor at Cal State San Bernardino and a faculty member there for 21 years. “Since we started negotiating, they haven’t moved from their original two percent offer.”

Both sides reached a contract agreement last year that resolved every issue except a pay structure for this year and 2017. Cal State San Bernardino faculty members, most of whom are faculty association members, will picket on campus all five days.

“We expect the non-union members to respect the picket lines,” Marx said.

If there is a strike, Cal State campuses will remain open, the Chancellor’s office said in a statement released Monday.

“The collective bargaining process continues, and a strike cannot be conducted until the end of the process,” the statement read. “The California State system remains committed to reaching a resolution.”