California State Faculty Association Calls for Statewide Strike in January
Credit: Image Courtesy of Margaret Attridge- Faculty across all 23 California State University (CSU) campuses will go on strike from Jan. 22-26 to support workers’ demands.
- Faculty will refrain from teaching and all other work, including coaching and counseling, during the strike.
- A strike would be avoided if a deal is reached with CSU management before the designated strike dates.
Faculty across the California State University (CSU) system’s 23 campuses will go on strike at the end of January if a contract is not reached — just in time for students to return to campus after winter break.
The California Faculty Association (CFA) announced a statewide strike from Jan. 22-26 in support of workers’ demands that have not yet been met by CSU management, including pay raises, increasing the salary floor, and more gender-neutral bathrooms and lactation spaces in campus buildings.
CFA represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches across the CSU system’s campuses, which enroll some 460,000 students. It is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU Local 1983) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
“Our members refuse to give in to what they know is beneath their worth,” CFA President Charles Toombs said in a press release. “Unlike management, we are unwilling to be complicit in the harming of our colleagues, students, and staff. Our commitment to one another is unshakeable.”
Seventeen out of the 23 campuses in the university system are set to begin the spring semester during the set strike days. During a strike, faculty will cancel class, join the picket lines, and refuse to complete normal work tasks such as grading, answering emails, and any other faculty work until the strike concludes.
As part of CFA, coaches, counselors, librarians, faculty at satellite campuses, and department chairs also withhold labor during a strike.
Faculty will be joined on strike by members of Teamsters Local 2010, which represents over 17,000 administrative, clerical, and skilled trades workers at the CSU and the University of California.
The strike builds upon a set of one-day strikes at four separate CSU campuses in December, including California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; California State University, Los Angeles; San Francisco State University; and Sacramento State University.