Cal State faculty union votes in favor of new contracts

The California Faculty Association overwhelmingly voted in favor of ratifying its tentative agreement with the California State University.

Voting for the union’s rank-and-file members ran for weeks and ended Wednesday night. Thursday’s announcement revealed the highest voter turnout the CFA has seen within a decade, with 95% of members supporting the contract.

The contract goes into immediate effect. Faculty will receive an immediate 4% general salary increase for the current and upcoming academic years and a $3,500 bonus for the first year CSU universities transitioned to online learning.

But not everyone agrees — particularly at SF State.

SF State’s leadership in the CFA’s Board of Directors voted against ratifying the tentative agreement. James Martel — SF State’s CFA chapter president who voted “no” — said that the raise doesn’t account for inflation, especially considering the cost of living in the Bay Area.

Martel said that CFA department representatives at SF State were largely against the tentative agreement, but that sentiment was not unanimous. Data on how individual chapters voted is still unavailable.

Martel said that if the CFA were able to vote whether to go on  strike or not, that would have been leverage against the CSU to get more of its original demands. Faculty would not have been allowed to have gone on strike until all negotiation efforts were exhausted, eliminating their contracts’ no-strike clause.

In a statement to Xpress, SF State President Lynn Mahoney said that she was unaware of the CFA’s ratification, but is “fully supportive of any agreement that provides well deserved compensation increases for CSU employees.”