California Faculty Association – Pomona Chapter

Students: What to know about possible job action.

The California Faculty Association (CFA) represents instructional faculty, librarians, coaches, and counselors at all 23 California State University campuses. To improve student learning conditions, we bargain for fair wages, reduce income inequalities, and improve working conditions. Currently, CFA is in a tense contract fight with the management of the CSU at the chancellor’s office. We hope that this page answers some of your questions. Please contact us if you have more.

For a video version of this information, see below. 

What is "job action" or a strike?

A strike would mean work stoppage in all of these areas: 

  • Counseling and Psychological Services
  • Libraries
  • Athletics
  • All courses

You will not meet for in-person classes, and courses will not be rescheduled or held on Zoom. If you have class online or the course is asynchronous, coursework will stop there as well. We won’t be able to answer emails, write letters of recommendation, or hold office hours. While campus buildings like the library will be open, librarians will not be on duty. You will see pickets at campus entrances. 

 

When are you going to strike?

The CFA Board of Directors unanimously voted to call for a system-wide strike in coalition with our Teamsters Local 2010 members January 22–26, 2024. This would be at all 23 campuses, including Pomona. However, it is not 100% certain that we will strike, and we remain hopeful we will secure a deal before scheduled job actions.

  

What does a strike mean for me?

It will mean you do not go to class or complete work during the week we are on strike. Athletics events will not be held, and librarians will not be available. Counselors will not report to work. The content in courses will either be missed, or the instructor will adjust the timeline to try to cover it later. 

 

Should I report faculty cancelling classes?

You were told by CPP administration in an email on Tuesday, Nov. 21 that you could report class or service cancellations to the university without any guidance on how this information would be used. We strongly encourage you not to report anything. CFA Pomona leadership strongly condemns this attempt at weaponizing students against faculty during lawful strike action, which is how we interpret that email. 

 

Will this affect my grades?

No. Each instructor will handle things in a way that makes sense for their classroom. You should ask individual instructors to get concrete responses to your concerns. We hope that management sees the urgency of quickly coming to a fair agreement with us so that learning will not be disrupted.

 

Will this affect time to graduation or keep me from graduating?

No. We have scheduled a one-week job action early in the semester, so this should not affect time to graduation or keep you from graduating. 

 

How long would the strike be for?

The strike is scheduled for Jan. 22-26, 2024. It is possible that if we do not get a deal there will be more job actions in spring or later semesters. We are hopeful this will not be the case. 

 

Can I delay my flight back to campus?

If you are not from the area and are scheduling a flight back to Pomona, we highly recommend you are here during the week of the strike. We can get a deal at any time and may not strike for the whole week. Additionally, some of your professors might be holding class and would expect you to be there. 

 

Why are you asking for a 12% raise?

That is the rate of inflation for 2022-2023. This allows us to break even. 

 

Will all professors strike?

CPP has a very high percentage of faculty involved in the union, and system-wide CFA member faculty voted to authorize a strike at a 95% rate. Faculty who are not in the union are still represented by the union--that is, you cannot opt out of being represented even if you choose not to pay dues. Accordingly, many of them will choose to strike as well to avoid breaking the picket line. You should expect all classes to not be held. 

 

Are you worried that striking negatively impacts students?

Very much so. We do not want to strike, because we are teachers who care about our classes and the content that we teach. We know how vital course content is, how essential it is to have access to counselors and librarians, and how important it is to let student athletes compete. A strike is a last resort, and we sincerely hope that we will be able to reach an agreement with management before that happens.

 

Don't college professors make plenty of money?

It depends what "plenty" means to you, but we make less than most people think. According to GlassDoor, the average professor at the Cal State system makes $111,000 a year. This is not actually true. There are full professors at Pomona who do not make that salary. Full-time lecturers, who teach the equivalent of 10 classes a year, make as little as $54,000 a year in very high cost of living areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Part-time lecturers, who teach the vast majority of courses, make even less and frequently have to string together multiple jobs to make ends meet. This is especially concerning when we remember that graduate degrees are required for this work. At https://transparentcalifornia.com/, you can look up the salaries of your professors to learn more. For comparison, also look up what high-ranking administrators make, like President Coley. 

 

The CSU Board said that they're raising tuition to pay for these raises. Is that true?

We do not believe this is an accurate representation of the system’s finances. According to the CSU, the system currently has $8.6 billion in reserves, which is a 28% increase since 2021. Everything we have asked for in our contracts would cost around $350 million, whereas the CSU saves $900 million alone. They would simply not be able to save a billion dollars a year anymore. Budgets are a moral document. It is mismanagement of public funds to be charging students more tuition and paying us a wage we cannot live off of while they hoard billions. They can afford to pay us without over-burdening students. 

 

Can I participate? 

Yes! We welcome student participation, because we believe we are on the same team. Here is a way you can support us:

  1. Do not break the picket line! This is very important. The main way that those outside the union show solidarity with the union is by not driving or walking through the picket line. 
  2. Join us on the picket line; we will have shifts you can sign up for in multiple locations, and we would love to have you there with us.
  3. If you cannot picket with us, avoid campus to withhold the money you pay for parking spots or buying food and drink..
  4. Let the Chancellor's office know you support them giving CFA our demands. You can contact CSU Chancellor Dr. Mildred Garcia at millieg@calstate.edu 
  5. Let your local representatives know that you support CSU dealing fairly with CFA. Find your state representatives here: https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/ 
  6. If you have contacts in local media, encourage them to cover strike action and contact us for quotes or other information

Follow https://www.instagram.com/calpolypomonasqe/ to join with Pomona student activists.