Dozens of union members from throughout the California State University system held up picket signs and marched around the Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach on Tuesday, Sept. 9 — to demand action, transparency and accountability from leadership on salary issues and other concerns.
Teamsters Local 2010, the California Faculty Association and other CSU unions gathered at the system’s headquarters, during Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting, to urge officials to take a 0% interest, short-term loan the state has offered and use it solely to restore premature job cuts, fund instruction, and pay the promised contractual raises and salary steps contained in various collective bargaining agreements. The Chancellor’s Office is reviewing whether to accept the loan, the CSU says on its website.
Unions fought during a six-month campaign to protect ongoing state funding for the CSU in the 2025-26 state budget. The state Legislature ultimately rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed ongoing cuts of 3% to the CSU’s base funding, according to a CFA statement — which claimed success in staving off the reductions.
The Chancellor’s Office wasn’t immediately available to respond to a request for comment because of Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting. But the CSU, for its part, has said in past statements that it is honoring all of its labor agreements — and accused the unions of mischaracterizing the public system’s final funding in the 2025-26 state budget.
Under the final state budget, the CSU will no longer face ongoing 3% cuts. That reduction, however, remains for the 2025-26 fiscal year, since 3% of its funding was deferred to the following fiscal year — amounting to a decline of $144 million.
But the state is offering a 0% interest short-term loan to help cover that gap for the 2025-26 academic year.
The unions, for their part, are demanding that CSU leadership not only take on the loan from the state, but also use the funds to support the workforce and restore jobs from their “premature austerity measures.”
The CSU has cut more than 1,200 staff positions across the system in the past two years, reduced student support staff by 7% and terminated 1,400 courses. It also increased tuition by 6%.
“The chancellor has the power to (revive) programs and classes that were cut, and to give people back their jobs,” Margarita Berta-Ávila, CFA president and Sacramento State professor, said in a statement. “But she is choosing not to. We fought vigorously alongside our union siblings to secure state funding for all of us in the CSU, but management is refusing to spend that money on the very people who make the system run. What they’re showing us through their continued lack of transparency and accountability is that CSU students, faculty and staff are not a priority.”
But the CSU has disputed the unions’ description of the state loan.
“This is not new funding,” the CSU said on a budget FAQ page. “It is a one-time loan intended to temporarily offset a budget cut and must be repaid. Characterizing this as a funding increase is misleading and disregards the clear contractual language to which both parties agreed.”
It wasn’t known, as of Tuesday, when or if the Chancellor’s Office would move to accept the loan.
As for salary increases, the state budget didn’t meet the thresholds to grant pay hikes, the CSU said.
The labor contract with the California State University Employees Union, for example, requires the state to provide “at least $227 million in new, unallocated, ongoing General Fund support to the CSU” in order for raises to take effect this year, according to that FAQ page.
“Similar contingency provisions exist in agreements with other unions, including the Teamsters and the Statewide University Police Association (SUPA),” the CSU said. “As such, CSU is complying with the contractual terms by not implementing those increases at this time.”
But the unions seem steadfast in fighting for raises.
During Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting, union members rallied outside in the courtyard, with some going into the building to offer public comment and share their demands and concerns.
“The Legislature gave the CSU the money with the expectation that they would stand by their contract,” said Steve Phillips, a Teamsters Local 2010 union member and locksmith at Chio State, “and now they’re saying they’re not going to give us our last step on the last pay raise of the last year of our contract.
“It’s not getting any cheaper to live nowadays, especially in California,” Phillips added. “It’s insane that now they’re saying that they’re not even going to give us any raises. With inflation continuing to go up every year, we’re getting paid less than we were before.”
Teamsters Local 2010 has placed CSU on notice to prepare for a potential strike after the 23-campus system — the nation’s largest public university system — said it won’t provide cost-of-living raises and step increases for Teamsters and other CSU labor groups this year, according to a recent union press release. The Teamsters said it was supposed to receive those increases in July.
“We’re going to fight and we’re going to let the CSU know that they are going to keep their promises, or they are going to have an expensive, difficult and painful battle with the Teamsters union and our CSU coalition,” Jason Rabinowitz, secretary-treasurer and principal officer for Teamsters Local 2010, said during the rally. “They don’t have campuses without our work, and we are ready to do whatever it takes, including shutting them down.”
CFA, Teamsters Local 2010 and the CSU Employees Union have all filed grievances and/or unfair labor practice charges against the CSU, union representatives said, for multiple reasons, such as system officials failing to bargain in good faith, and refusing to pay employees raises and salary steps that were called for in their respective collective bargaining agreements.
Leaders of the CSU union coalition met with Chancellor Mildred García on Aug. 21 and were expecting her to have answers to some of their shared concerns regarding raises, unnecessary job losses, programs being eliminated and other concerns, according to a press release. But Garcia, union representatives said, offered no concrete answers to any of these concerns.
Ultimately, union members said, they want leadership to listen and prioritize the needs of students, faculty and staff.
“I hope that they listen to what we have to say,” Phillips said, “because right now they’re not even listening.”
So far, however, neither the coalition of unions nor the CSU seems to be budging from their positions.
“Avoiding a deeper cut is helpful,” the CSU said on its FAQ page about the final state budget, “but it does not equate to an increase in funding — and it certainly doesn’t meet the thresholds outlined in our collective bargaining agreements.”
CalMatters contributed to this report.