LOS ANGELES (AP) — California State University faculty would get a pay raise under a tentative deal reached on a three-year contract.
The California Faculty Association said its bargaining team decided unanimously last week to recommend that union members ratify the agreement for the 2014-2105 school year.
The agreement provides a first-year 3 percent increase to the base compensation pool and includes a 1.6 percent salary increase for all faculty, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. There would be additional increases for some temporary and tenure-track faculty and lecturers.
The CFA said in a press release that all faculty members would receive general pay hikes, though no amounts were specified. Salary and benefits negotiations could be reopened for years two and three of the contract.
In a statement Chancellor Timothy P. White called the agreement “the foundation on which to build a bright future for our students who deserve the highest quality of education programs in the state.” The previous contract expired June 30.
In recent weeks, the faculty group had mounted peaceful demonstrations on several of the system’s 23 campuses to appeal for pay raises and a correction of uneven pay policies.
The faculty union represents more than 23,000 Cal State professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches.
The new agreement will begin to improve a “distorted salary structure” that saw longtime staff making less than new hires, women in departments making $10,000 less than newly hired male colleagues and holders of doctorates struggling to get by on “embarrassingly low wages,” said Faculty Association President Lillian Taiz, a professor of history at Cal State Los Angeles.
“We feel like it’s not nearly enough after seven years, but it is at least a beginning and will be welcome by faculty who haven’t had anything for so long,” Taiz told the Times.
After going five years without a raise, faculty won a 1.34% pay increase last year.
The agreement must still be ratified by the faculty union membership and the Board of Trustees.
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