Update (Jan. 18, 12:15 p.m.): A class cancellation report form has been issued by the CSU, in which students can list the class that has been canceled and the faculty member teaching their section.
“We will not tolerate any management action that is intended to interfere with union rights,” stated the CFA in a declaration on their website.
The CSU cannot lawfully dismiss or discipline any CFA faculty members for engaging in the strikes, however, they are entitled to dock pay from participating members, according to the CFA.
Students have taken to online forums to discuss false submissions of canceled classes, aiming to crowd the survey with unrelated spam.
Some on-campus operations not involved with the strike will also remain operable throughout the week. Campus Dining will be open during regular hours throughout the strike, as Campus Dining staff are considered essential and are largely not included in a participating union, according to an email sent to employees by Cal Poly Director of Human Resources Nicole Buvari.
Many classes at all California State University (CSU) campuses are coming to a halt the week of Jan. 22, with faculty from every part of the state planning to seek better wages and conditions through a potential week of strikes, according to the California Faculty Association (CFA).
The confirmation of these strikes follows a brief negotiation session early last week, in which the demands of the CFA, including a 12% wage increase, longer parental leave and widened access to campus facilities were met with a pay rise of just 5%, set to take effect Jan. 31.
Operating on all 23 CSU campuses, CFA has over 29,000 members, making the upcoming strike the largest in U.S. higher education history. The main picketing lines will be located at the three main entrances to Cal Poly’s campus by Highland Drive, Grand Avenue and California Boulevard.
“Our goal is to capture everybody coming onto campus and everybody leaving campus,” CFA-SLO Political Action Legislative Chair Cameron Jones said. “We’ll be out there every single day, for most of the day to make sure our presence is there.”
The picket lines will run from 6 a.m. until the early afternoon, and Jones estimates a turnout of several hundred faculty spread throughout the locations. However, these gatherings are not just restricted to faculty, as students are encouraged to come to the picketing lines to show their support for the Cal Poly staff.
“Be on the strike line with us,” CFA-SLO President Lisa Kawamura said. “We’re hoping to get music and dance and flash mobs and those are definitely fun things that students can participate in.”
Students can sign up for picketing shifts at CFA-SLO’s website or visit one of the three picketing sites at each of the main entrances to campus.
Aside from the main effect of pausing classes, the strikes pose additional challenges for students living on campus. Due to union regulations, delivery drivers who are a part of other unions will not be able to cross the picket lines during the duration of the strike. This includes UPS and San Luis Obispo County bus drivers, whose routes will be updated within the coming days to accommodate the CFA action.
However, Jones asserts that the short-term difficulties for students will be outweighed by the long term development of Cal Poly’s quality of education.
The state-wide approval rate from CFA faculty members is just under 95%, according to the CFA website, and many Cal Poly professors share the same support.
“On the one hand, you don’t want to have to strike…it’s going to be disruptive for the students,” Cal Poly’s Co-Director of Forensics Dr. John Patrick said. “On the other hand, there’s a certain amount of knowledge that if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re gonna get walked all over for the rest of your life.”
Throughout negotiations with the CSU team over the past eight months, CFA’s demands have not changed. CFA Monterey Bay Chapter President Meghan O’Donnell, who spoke with the CSU representatives said talks between the organizations have halted in the days leading up to the strike after the CSU representatives walked out of negotiations last week.
“I’ve actually never seen this happen since I’ve been on the bargaining team,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve been talking to a lot of people trying to get the Chancellor [Mildred García] to come back to the bargaining table but thus far, she’s refusing to do that.”
CSU Vice-Chancellor for Human Resources Leora Freedman spoke on the negotiations in a statement in December.
“We recognize the need to increase compensation and are committed to doing so, but our financial commitments must be fiscally sustainable,” she said in the statement.
Despite the 5% increase to pay effective Jan. 31, O’Donnell said the CFA has not changed its stance. At Cal Poly, the possible benefits from striking are more than just a wage increase — they also include improved facilities and workload shifts for faculty.
“The reality is that it’s a full package. We’re fighting for holistic kind of improvements to our working conditions and student learning conditions,” O’Donnell said. “They’re real equity issues, they’re anti-racist and social justice issues.”
The CFA demands include safe gender-inclusive restrooms, lactation rooms and safety provisions for faculty interacting with university police on our campuses — all stipulations that require less of a financial investment than the potential wage increase of 12%, which would cost 380 million in new recurring spending, according to a neutral fact finder report completed in Dec. 2023. This asking price approximately matches the rate of inflation over the past two years, which was 12.2% in California, and 13.5% in the U.S. according to the California Department of Finance.
“Incoming assistant professors in the College of Liberal Arts don’t make enough money to be qualified as being out of the poverty line in San Luis Obispo County,” Kawamura said.
Conversely, CSU has offered a cumulative 15% wage increase over the next three years, including the 5% raise this year. This raise is the same as those made with five of CSU’s other labor unions.
Kawamura also said the CFA has additionally discussed a second, open-ended strike, in the case that CSU does not meet their demands. Such action would extend the strike as well as the consequences that come with it, including the halt of Cal Poly classes. This possibility has not yet been approved and ultimately depends on CSU’s response to next week’s strikes.
“That’s something that the board of directors for CFA has to vote on, but we are prepared to escalate if the strike that’s going to take place on all of the campuses next week doesn’t move the Chancellor to come back to the bargaining table,” O’Donnell said.
This is an ongoing story. Mustang News will continue to update this article as new information arises.