CSU Strike Appears Unlikely as Talks Progress

The prospect of a strike by Cal State University faculty members appeared to fade Friday as both sides in the contract talks reported major progress in negotiating a three-year labor pact.

Officials with the California Faculty Assn., which negotiates for the university’s 22,000 teachers, librarians and psychological counselors, will meet this afternoon in Los Angeles to review proposals and possibly vote on a tentative agreement.

Union representatives and CSU administrators cautioned Friday that various contract issues still need to be resolved, although they declined to specify which ones.

“It’s a very sensitive moment in the negotiations,” said union spokeswoman Alice Sunshine.

Citing the possibility of a tentative agreement, Sunshine said, “We could have it now, or we could blow it now.”

CSU spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler gave a similar assessment. “There’s been a lot of progress, but there are a couple of hitches,” she said.

A breakthrough in the long-acrimonious negotiations came with the delivery of a neutral fact-finder’s report early this week. Although few details were provided, officials said the report provided possible compromises on key issues.

The state’s budget crunch, a result of California’s economic slowdown, also has pushed the administration and the union toward a settlement.

The union initially sought a 5.7% pay increase this year but has moved toward accepting the 2% raise proposed by CSU. For full-time employees, the union pay scale now ranges from $41,940 for an assistant professor to $90,804 for a full professor.

Administration officials have balked at union proposals for expanded medical benefits for part-time faculty members, increased stipends for department chairs and pay increases for new professors moving up the ladder toward tenure.

Union leaders have repeatedly threatened to strike over what they called the lack of progress in the talks to replace the previous three-year contract, which expired June 30.

The union has aimed much of its criticism directly at CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed, maintaining that since he took the helm of the 22-campus system in 1998 the administration has hardened its positions in contract talks and other labor-related matters.

Over the last month, the union has set up picket lines protesting Reed’s leadership at five events where the chancellor spoke, including a session in New York and another, on Tuesday, at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The California Faculty Assn., founded in 1978, has never gone on strike over a contract dispute. The last large-scale walkouts by CSU faculty members came in the late 1960s, when strikes were staged to protest the nation’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

The rising hope that a strike will be averted and a tentative contract agreement reached was a relief to Martin Fiebert, a psychology professor at Cal State Long Beach and president of the campus chapter of the faculty union.

“We’ve been putting a lot of energy into preparing for a strike authorization vote at each of our campuses, but we’d all be relieved not to take that action,” Fiebert said. “It would be a lot better for everyone, from the faculty to the administration to the students.”

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Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.