James Martel, president of the SF State chapter of the California Faculty Association, announced on Sept. 1 progress on a sweeping portion of ongoing negotiations between the SF State chapter and the university. At stake are the terms for a Memorandum of Understanding, which the CFA bargaining team has accepted from the university and is encouraging its membership to approve during a “48 hour ratification vote” taking place Sept. 8-9.
Martel stated that while the SF State chapter did not get everything it wanted, it was able to extract concessions from the university that will go a long way toward ameliorating some of the hardships union members have faced throughout the pandemic.
“We feel that the university isn’t going to give us more than what they offer here and what they do offer has some real and tangible benefits,” Martel wrote in a statement.
The MOU is an agreement intended to establish a few joint principles and practices to guide the two sides through the struggles surrounding remote teaching required of faculty by SF State’s decision to continue remote learning. Among the items included in the MOU are: ready access to ergonomic assessments; reasonable limits of live remote interactions for non-teaching faculty; general commitment by the university to keeping all employees’ jobs in the bargaining unit; and better enforcement of Article 12.29 in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which requires that work goes to existing lecturer faculty before the university hires new lecturer faculty.
According to Martel, the top concern for the bargaining team in this part of the negotiation was to save as many jobs as possible from what he described as a form of capitalism that is provoked by extreme circumstances such as a pandemic.
According to a statement from Associate Vice President of Human Resources Ingrid Williams, the university is hopeful the CFA will approve the MOU in the spirit of cooperation amidst the financial struggles faced by all.
“A tentative memorandum of understanding has been reached between the parties. SF State is hopeful that the California Faculty Association will confirm that the parties can move forward and execute on the MOU, so we can continue to support faculty and the work of the University while keeping our students first during these challenging times,” Williams said in a statement sent on her behalf by Bobby King, director of communications for the president.
Martel was quick to point out in his letter that the MOU did not include ongoing negotiations on repopulating the university. On that score the driving priority will be on the health and safety of its members. Concerns over faculty health are well-founded, as a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation has shown that almost a quarter of teachers are at greater risk of becoming majorly ill if they contract COVID-19.
“We’re not done with this. Because there’s a whole issue that we’ve been negotiating with them about, which is the repopulation of campus, which is under what circumstances people will actually be on campus,” Martel said.
Check back for the forthcoming CFA SF State chapter vote results.
