Cal State Officials, Faculty Tentatively OK Contract

Eager to put a faculty labor dispute behind them, California State University administrators announced Monday that they have reached a tentative union contract that continues to shift more money into merit raises but gives professors more control over who will get such raises.

The university’s chancellor and union leadership have given their blessing to the tentative three-year contract, which must be ratified by union membership and Cal State’s Board of Trustees.

“I think this is something the faculty can live with and build on,” said Susan Meisenhelder, incoming president of the California Faculty Assn. “There was serious compromise on both sides.”

If embraced by the union as Meisenhelder predicts, the contract is expected to curtail agitation among the 19,600-member faculty that has distracted Chancellor Charles B. Reed from pushing his agenda at the 22-campus university system, the nation’s largest.

“All of us at the CSU greatly respect the faculty and know they are responsible for the success of our students and our university,” Reed said in a statement. He praised the agreement as a step forward: “Compromises were made by both parties in the best interests of all concerned.”

Under the proposed contract, the university will issue a 3% raise across the board this year with an additional 2.4% increase for junior faculty members moving up the pay scale. The pay raises are retroactive to Sept. 1.

These raises are slightly more than the 2.5% general salary increase and the extra 1.5% “step” increases for junior faculty imposed by administrators in March. Administrators said they were forced to implement those terms after the faculty union membership rejected an earlier proposed contract in February.

The administration will pay an additional $16.2 million in merit raises, which accounts for 38.7% of all money spent on raises. That is a slightly smaller proportion of merit raises than the administration has wanted.

The administration has wanted to double the amount of money awarded to merit--from 20% last year to 40% this year--as part of its plan to increase the accountability of the faculty and encourage professors to work hard.

Union negotiators agreed that the proportion of merit money can increase to a full 40% of all raises in the second and third years of the three-year contract.

The administration, in turn, gave faculty more say in who qualifies for merit raises.

Faculty-run academic departments will recommend the vast majority of professors whose names are sent to campus presidents for merit raises. Furthermore, a faculty community will be set up to hear appeals from professors who believe they were unjustly overlooked for raises or did not receive as much of a raise as they deserved.

This appeals committee will have a budget, tantamount to 5% of all merit raises, to reward those it believes deserve more money. The committee’s decisions will be final.

All this was done to satisfy union members who complained that campus presidents could use the money to play favorites, turning the merit pay system into a “patronage pay” system to reward friends and punish enemies.

All told, this year’s salary increases will average 5.2%. Next year, the raises will average 6% if the Legislature fulfills Cal State’s budget request.

The average full-time Cal State professor earned $61,000 before this year’s raises.

During Reed’s 15 months as chancellor, union negotiations and the labor strife have preoccupied him, taking away from his other commitments to improve teacher training and prepare the university to accommodate a huge influx of new students by operating campuses year-round.

Unlike the contract rejected earlier this year, union leaders from every campus have recommended that the faculty association membership embrace this version. Campus elections will be held between now and May 26, and then the contract will go before the Cal State Board of Trustees’ committee on collective bargaining for final approval.