Inside Bay Area (California), March 22, 2007, Thursday

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Inside Bay Area (California)

March 22, 2007 Thursday

SECTION: REVIEW

HEADLINE: CSU professors OK 2-day strikes

BYLINE: By Matt Krupnick, MEDIANEWS STAFF

BODY:

California State University professors announced Wednesday they will strike at all 23 CSU campuses if they don't reach a contract agreement with administrators this month.

Union leaders said 94 percent of voting members approved the strike, which they said would be the largest higher-education walkout in U.S. history. About 11,000 of the 23-campus system's 24,000 faculty members belong to the union, and about 8,100 voted this month.

Professors have criticized the university's raises for administrators, saying faculty salaries lag far behind those at other schools. The 417,000-student university said it has proposed 24 percent pay hikes, while the union says the proposal works out to 14 or 15 percent increases for most instructors.

"We don't want to strike, but we will," said John Travis, president of the California Faculty Association and a professor at Humboldt State University. "We are a faculty that is fed up, and we are a faculty that is ready to walk out."

The rolling two-day strikes would occur in April and May and would be designed to minimize the effects on students, union leaders said. Most students would miss only a day of classes during the strikes, they said.

The union said it could not yet provide dates for the walkouts, but that it would warn students in advance.

At California State University, East Bay, in Hayward, several students said that they support their instructors. Some have vowed to shut down the two-campus university during a strike. "I'm happy and excited that faculty are taking a stand for themselves and their students," said student Lili Marquez. "When faculty suffer, we suffer."

Student Brandon Soublet said he wasn't surprised by the vote results.

"I expected it because faculty have been working on this for so long," he said. "It's great they're standing up for what they need."

Administrators at the Concord and Hayward campuses said they would decide over the next few days what to do if the faculty strikes. University officials promised that students would be able to use libraries and other facilities during walkouts.

"This is uncharted territory we're in," said CSUEB spokesman Kim Huggett. "But we're preparing the best that we can."

At the smaller Concord campus, Dean Peter Wilson said he hoped a strike would be isolated to Hayward.

"For the first time since I arrived here, I hope they forget about Concord," joked Wilson, who has pushed for more faculty involvement at Concord.

Administrators said they were working on reaching a settlement on salary raises before Sunday, after which an independent fact-finder's report will be made public. Chancellor Charles Reed said he was doing what he could to avoid a strike.

"We hope that today's announcement does not signal a predetermined outcome on behalf of the faculty union," he said in a written statement. "That would be a disservice to faculty and students alike."

The vote followed two years of contract negotiations, and the announcement came as Reed appeared in Sacramento to answer legislators' questions about executive perks. Several lawmakers have criticized the CSU administration for raising student fees 10 percent while offering perks and bonuses to executives.

In a written statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he remained optimistic the two sides would reach an agreement and avert a strike.

"Faculty and administrators," he said, "must work together in good faith so that our students ... do not become the unintended victims of a looming strike."

Education and labor experts said they could not remember a large-scale strike among faculty members in the United States. The CSU system is among the nation's largest university system.

"It would be very, very significant if the strike was well-attended, because it would have a real impact on learning," said Ronald Ehrenberg, a higher-education economics expert at Cornell University. But "if there's a lot of student outrage, then it's not helpful to the union."

At some campuses, the strikes would occur close to the end of the school year. Union leaders said they did not expect the actions to prevent students from completing their classes.

"Faculty get sick all the time, and that's never stopped a student from graduating," said Tom McCoy, a CSUEB professor who leads his school's union chapter.

Staff writer Kristofer Noceda contributed to this report.