Strike

From April 13 – 18, the majority of the faculty from all CSU campuses (about 24,400 professors) will very likely strike. I have not heard any indication from either side of any prospect of avoiding the strike. So, I think it is a good idea to think about how we want to be about this. I have looked for some information to provide to our students, and I hope to reach an agreement with my students about what we should do.

I found this article in a Chico Paper that seems to reasonably present both sides of the issue.

The CFA (faculty union who are calling the strike) provides this description and explanation of what the strike is about.

This website has many graphs that illustrate the difficult situation faced by the striking instructors.

There is a student group meeting Thursday, April 7 from 11 AM to 1 PM on Dexter Lawn to support the striking faculty.

The CFA also provided these two websites for students who want to be involved in supporting the strike: https://www.facebook.com/calpolysqe/ and http://csusqe.org/

Additionally, the CFA has proposed that we provide this information to students:
Due to stalled negotiations after seven years of almost no salary increases, the faculty will strike
April 13-15 and April 18-19 if no settlement is reached before that date. Please expect that in
many, if not all of your courses, faculty will cancel lecture and lab meetings, refrain from
answering email, cancel office hours, and stop all other job duties. Faculty care deeply about
their students, and we will work with you to ensure that you still meet course requirements
during the strike. Your professors, who have been deprived of adequate raises for eight years,
will take this action only as a last-chance option; they risk losing salary. This will be the largest
faculty strike in U.S. history; if you would like to learn more, please ask me and visit
www.calfac.org, CaliforniaFacultyAssociationCalPolySLO on Facebook or @CFA SLO on
Twitter.
If you’d like to help, please call or email Chancellor White (562-951-4738 or
twhite@calstate.edu) and let him know: “My name is _; I am a Cal Poly student, and I want you to know that my professors deserve a 5% raise! The CSU has the money; it is a matter of priorities. I cannot get the education I deserve unless my teachers are paid what they deserve.” And please feel free to join us on the picket lines if/when the strike occurs.

ME? I don’t wish to complain about salary, or really anything for me personally. I’m grateful for the opportunity to live in San Luis Obispo and work here with you every day. However, I have it much much better than most. Lecturers and adjuncts are in my opinion, not making a living wage for San Luis Obispo. I know lecturers who can’t afford to send their kids to college – to get the same services that we are providing. I understand that teachers in the early childhood school have left their job to take higher paying jobs at Walmart. Additionally, we are losing the ability to attract the best professors at Cal Poly because our salaries are low: well below the national average. I also resent the chancellor saying that the money we have to pay professors is already committed, when he committed this money knowing he would not honor his financial obligation in our contracts. Lastly, I regard my relationship with my students, what happens in our classroom and what we are doing with education as transformational and profoundly important to me. I suggest we think about how we want to be about this and honor each other’s choices too. I look forward to the discussion – but it will be short because we have lots of physics to talk about.

Resources:
The graph below is taken from “Race to the Bottom, CSU’s 10-year Failure to Fund It’s Core Mission“, published by the CFA in 2015.
California Salaries.png

Salaries with color.png
The range of salaries at Cal Poly in 2015. The graph goes off to the right down to the salaries paid to the people who work in the Children’s Center. The information is public. The Sacramento Bee maintains a feely accessible data base.

The Graph and facts below indicate how student tuition have risen with the increase in administrators’ positions and salaries, while the number of tenured faculty has decreased.

Facts from CFA.png

CSU Graph.png

– The Fact Finding Report