Cal State aides cancel strike
Student employees at California State University called off a threatened strike Wednesday after Darrell Steinberg, the new state Senate president pro tem, offered to mediate between the union and the college system.
United Auto Workers Local 4123, representing about 6,000 students working as teaching and research assistants and tutors, is asking the university to give its members free tuition and fees, a benefit extended to other Cal State employees.
The university says it can ill afford the estimated $8-million to $11-million cost of the proposal in the middle of the deepening state budget crisis.
The strike had been scheduled to start early Wednesday on a number of Cal State campuses, including those in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Northridge and Pomona.
-- Gale Holland
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