CSU, Faculty Reach Tentative Labor Agreement

California State University management and the California Faculty Association have reached a tentative labor agreement less than a week before the faculty was scheduled to go on strike. The two sides have been locked in a labor dispute for the past year.

Under the terms of the deal, faculty on active pay status or on leave will receive a 5 percent general salary increase on June 30, 2016. That will be followed by a 2 percent increase on July 1, 2016, a 3.5 percent increase on July 1, 2017, and a 2.65 percent step increase during fiscal year 2017/18 for eligible faculty.

Tenure-line faculty who are promoted will also see larger minimum pay increases. Those rising from assistant to associate professor and associate professor to full professor will get at least a 9 percent pay increase, up from 7.5 percent.

The university also won some concessions. New employees hired after July 1, 2017, will have to work for 10 years instead of five to receive retirement health benefits.

In a statement, CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said the agreement increases faculty compensation in a fiscally responsible way.

"The tentative agreement enables all of us to focus our efforts on serving students and spares students the negative impacts of the threatened strikes,” he said.

In a letter to faculty members, union president Jennifer Eagan thanked them for their "fearlessness."

"Preparing for the strike, your work on the campuses helped us secure this agreement," she said.

Union members must still vote to ratify the contract.