An all-out, five-day strike at all 23 California State University campuses ended abruptly Monday night, barely one day into the walkout, when the faculty union and management announced an unexpected tentative agreement.
Although it was presented as a victory by the statewide California Faculty Association, the tentative contract was immediately panned by the union’s San Francisco chapter.
The agreement, which covers some 29,000 union workers across the state, must be ratified by a majority of voting members before it takes effect.
“The CFA San Francisco State University chapter is not endorsing the Tentative Agreement at this time,” the chapter said in a press release.
“It was a surprise to most of the members of the union to have this happen after one day of a five-day strike,” explained Brad Erickson, president of the SF State chapter. “It’s obviously less than we wanted, and ultimately less than we’ve lost due to inflation, but it’s also better than what we started out with.”
Among many other benefits, the tentative agreement includes a five percent raise for all faculty, retroactive to July 1, 2023, and another five percent increase for all faculty on July 1 this year, with the forthcoming raise contingent on the state not reducing base funding to the university system. A service step increase of 2.65 percent for the 2024-25 school year was also included.
It is generally rare for a local chapter to publicly oppose its parent union’s decision, but not for the San Francisco State chapter. In 2021, it stood out among the 23 chapters by bucking a tentative agreement reached by the California Faculty Association. Regardless, the contract was, ultimately, approved handily.
In an emergency meeting that drew some 250 San Francisco chapter union members on Tuesday, an overwhelming number of attendees opposed the tentative agreement and supported going on strike again, according to Marie Drennan, the chapter’s communications chair.
“The Tentative Agreement was reached in a closed-door negotiation … without notifying chapters that negotiations were resuming, and without soliciting input,” the San Francisco chapter stated in an Instagram post Tuesday afternoon.
According to Erickson, the local chapters were kept in the dark about bargaining, and did not even know negotiations were taking place. “I think that’s the problem, too. With transparency, you get trust, and you get buy-in,” Erickson said. “With secrecy you have distrust.”
The San Francisco State chapter plans to conduct another poll tomorrow to get the opinions of members who weren’t present today. They will announce the chapter’s final decision on the tentative agreement on Thursday, during a noon rally at the campus entrance at 19th and Holloway avenues. Faculty and students plan to form a giant human “NO” on the quad on the same day.
The statewide union said in an email statement that the California State University management had put forward a “better offer” on Monday than those made before. And, while the union was “prepared to strike for the full week,” it snapped up the Monday offer as it proffered “significant gains” for faculty.
Lawrence Hanley, an English professor at SF State, said he finds the substance of the tentative agreement “infuriating.”
According to Hanley, the union’s original goal was to gain a 12 percent increase in one year. In comparison, now they get a five percent raise for the 2023-24 academic year, a five percent raise in 2024-25, contingent on state funding of the university, and a 2.65 percent service step increase for 2024-25 — for which not everyone is eligible.
While the cost of living is higher in San Francisco than other California college towns, the salaries and benefits under the proposal are uniform. This, Hanley said, goes a long way toward explaining why the SF State chapter is an outlier in disagreeing with its peers statewide.
“I would bet,” he said, “that the majority of SF State union members are not going to approve the tentative agreement.”
The sfsu-csu U.Corp is a “special branch” of the csu system emulating bigger universities in buying up prior affordable housing adjacent to the school while ignoring the housing transit impacts adjacent and the displacement of families and staff and teachers due to these land grabs. See sfsu masterplan and UPN and UPS purchases and redevelopments while ignoring housing issues see RVs along lakeshore and around the university…