California Faculty Association, Chico Chapter

California Faculty Association, Chico Chapter had a fun yet serious event today to talk about the state of the CSU specifically and the state of higher education in general in build up to our potential strike. You could hear the bagpipes almost all over campus. It was AMAZING. Great job to our E-Board Members, our SQE interns, and our California Faculty Association staff who helped pull this off. Remember to vote in the strike authorization vote coming this next week!

From Member Susan Green:

Wait Wait! Don't Tell me!

Listen to Wait Wait! Don't Tell! me this Saturday on NPR. I attended the taping this week and it has Bob Odenkirk as its guest talking about the WGA strike and the joy of the picket line and the ongoing SAG Aftra Strke. There is much celebration of unions in Saturday's episode!

Yo, California State University— read the room. Labor unions aren’t gonna take measly offers from management anymore. 10% GSI, raising the floor for the lowest paid…sounds a lot like our California Faculty Association proposals.

One other campaign California Faculty Association, Chico Chapter is organizing is the “On Thursdays We Wear Red!” It’s important to show not only our POWER, but also our SOLIDARITY on campus. What’s better than giving a bright visual reminder of what we’re fighting for with our contract? Beef up your RED wardrobe friends! Start planning your outfits now!

Hey California Faculty Association, Chico Chapter friends! Join the Executive Board for a drink and conversation on Wednesday September 6th from 4 pm to 6 pm at Argus! Come chat about bargaining questions or just catch a breath the third week of the semester! First drink is on us! Hope to see you there!

Ok, emails are rolling in from faculty. Many faculty are shooting me a quick email just to say “Done!” to my requests, but some other faculty have some good questions about a variety of things. I decided I’d post the answers to social media just in case other were curious.

Two different people today asked “Where did the 12% GSI demand come from?” which is a great question! So here’s my answer:

“If you recall, the union sent out a bargaining survey this past spring. We had over 7,000 members from the 23 campuses respond. On the salary question we had a HUGE variety of answers. One person said we should demand a 100% raise (seriously!) and 2 people said we get paid enough (also serious). The rest of the answers were somewhere between those. There were a lot of responses between 8% and 29%.

Many people cited 8% because that was the rate of inflation last year (actually 9.1% at the height of last year). Many people cited 29% due to several of the CSU Presidents getting a 29% raise last year (including now retired President Hutchinson). So the 12% figure is actually the average rate of all the responses from our 7,000 respondents who filled out the survey.

Having participated in bargaining, I can also give you son “unofficial” explanations. Some of our colleagues in more expensive markets are still unhappy with the 12%. Most notably, our San Francisco and LA Chapters. They firmly believe we should have asked for more. They point out that our raises have been so meager over the past decade compared to inflation that we’ve actually taken pay cuts every time we’ve accepted less. In particular, they say that if Administration can give themselves enormous raises (and add to their numbers), we should at least be demanding raises that help us stay a bit ahead of inflation.”

So there you go! Got other questions? Feel free to ask & I’ll do my best to answer!

Whew! I sent our 1,013 emails today. Nope, not an exaggeration. That’s the number of dues paying members of the union we have at California State University, Chico. I sent them in batches via department so it was actually “only” 45 emails, but to over a thousand faculty! I am SERIOUS about this work. For those of you not at Chico who might want to re-use language for their own campuses or for those who are just curious, I’m sharing my email. As you know, radical transparency is one of my core values. I have nothing to hide and neither does the union as a whole. We are steadfast in our resolve to fight for what we deserve. When we fight, we win!

Ok, California Faculty Association members! Our commit cards are up & running! In the next few weeks you’ll be heading from Exec Board & Contract Action Team members on your campus about signing your commit cards.

What is a commit card? It’s a signal to management that we are SERIOUS about this bargaining process. Signing the commit card let’s us know who is ready to put their money where their mouths are & start gearing up for a strike if management doesn’t meet our demands. The more faculty we get signing on & spreading the word, the more pressure they feel to settle this contract fight.

Who’s with me??? Sign your electronic commit card here:

Commit to Take Action for a Fair Contract After four bargaining sessions on our re-opener articles and very little substantial movement from the CSU management bargaining team, the two sides are at impasse. Impasse moves us to the next step of the process: mediation with a state-appointed third party. If we cannot agree to contract terms in...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that higher education IS in a crisis. Now is the time to act. We have to demand more. California Faculty Association is gearing up to be strike ready. Are you with us?

CFA President Charles Toombs welcoming us to Fall 2023 Kick Off! California Faculty Association is ready to start this semester strong!

Holding it down for Team Chico at the California Faculty Association Fall Kick Off! I hope we can recruit some new activists this year from California Faculty Association, Chico Chapter! It’s nice to get away from campus and remember there are other people experiencing both similar and different things than Chico’s shenanigans ❤️

Bargain Day #4! Let’s see what sort of proposals management brings us & how pitiful they are for our futures.