Union decries president raises

Flyers and human-sized banners about California State University (CSU) presidents and their recent salary raises could be seen Tuesday afternoon in front of Clark Hall, where San Jose State California Faculty Association members were seeking support for their grievances. 

The California Faculty Association is a labor union representing 29,000 CSU tenure-track faculty, coaches, counselors, librarians and lecturers, according to SJSU’s California Faculty Association chapter website.

CSU presidents received raises up to 30% in their salaries in July shortly after the CSU Board of Trustees approved the raises, according to a July 13 EdSource article. 

The union strongly criticized the increase in wages for the highest-paid executives in the CSU system, according to the EdSource article. 

“[The July 14] action by CSU Trustees to increase wages for the system’s highest paid executives and campus presidents is shameful,” California Faculty Association President Charles Toombs said. “Despite messaging around equity, parity, and fairness, Trustees did the opposite. They continue systemic inequality while doing little to restore trust in a university system unable or unwilling to protect students, faculty, and staff from sexual harassment,” he stated in a July 14 LAist article. 

The board of trustees voted for the increase after a study was released that showed CSU presidents were underpaid compared to presidents of other universities in the U.S., according to the EdSource article. 

An SJSU graduate student, who prefers to use the alias Jane because of privacy concerns, said stopping by Tuesday’s tabling in front of Clark Hall was her first time hearing about the presidents’ salary raises. 

“I definitely felt for the professors, I definitely could see how this was affecting them negatively,” Jane said. “I kind of noticed this trend at a lot of institutions where the presidents will make a very large sum of money and it doesn’t seem to necessarily match what they [presidents] do day to day. Professors tend to do more, right?” 

Members of the California Faculty Association are claiming that the pay hike is too high compared to the raises faculty received this year. 

CSU faculty approved a new contract earlier this year that would have a 4% retroactive raise for last year and another 4% raise for this year contingent on the state budget allocation, according to a Feb. 3 LAist article.

The negotiation between the CSU and the California Faculty Association on the 4% retroactive raises came a few months after the union threatened to strike, according to previous Spartan Daily reporting. 

Then-CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro only agreed to a 2% faculty raise for the 2021-22 year at the time, which was in November, according to previous Spartan Daily reporting. 

The general faculty salary increase, settled between the union and the CSU Board of Trustees, on July 1 was contingent on state funding received by CSU. If the state provided $300,000,000 or more to the CSU, faculty would have received 4% for 2022 in addition to the 4% they received for 2021, according to a May 19 California Faculty Association news release. 

Michelle Smith McDonald, SJSU senior media relations director, said in an email Wednesday that faculty will receive a 4% general salary increase retroactive to July 21, 2021. 

However, because of state budget restrictions, the tentative contract was not able to go into effect, McDonald said. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom did not allocate the funds needed for the 4% increase. In turn, the general salary increase that went into effect in July was decreased to 3%, according to a July 1 California Faculty Association news release. 

“It was just very weird. Everyone was in a weird situation and the governor didn’t want to approve the Senate budget . . . So the raise ended up being 3%,” said Ray Buyco, chapter president for the union and SJSU senior lecturer. 

Various presidents’ raises ranged from 7% to 29% with SJSU Interim President Steve Perez getting a 7% raise, according to a California Faculty Association informational flyer. 

“The bottom line is that many of us are struggling, especially in a high cost of living state like California to make ends meet,” Buyco said. “And so you’ve got this faculty who is burning the candle to give you your education and who got a 4% and then a 3% raise, and then you’ve got these presidents across the CSU that got up to a 30% raise.”  

CSU Long Beach had the highest raise with President Jane Conoley receiving a $106,227 salary increase, while Perez received $28,240, according to the California Faculty Association informational flier. 

“These are people [are faculty] who have families. They have rent, or they have mortgages to pay the house, to put food on the table [and] a roof over their family’s heads, [salary pay] definitely been on my mind, especially because of the pandemic,” said Jane, the graduate student who wished to go by an alias. 

Faculty received a one-time payment of $3,500 coronavirus service award to recognize the work of faculty during the 2021-22 year in the contract negotiated with the CSU system, according to a Dec. 21, 2021 Mercury News article. 

Buyco said he feels that the CSU did not address the needs of faculty and staff during salary negotiations and felt as though there was more focus on equitable pay for presidents instead of across the entire system. 

“Then you have a board of trustees that nobody thinks about, you know, that appointed people that just decided, ‘You know what, these guys are making too little money,’ ” Buyco said. 

He said he feels that contributes to the larger problem of privatization of public institutions.

“We’ve had a system where the majority of people teaching classes don’t have any job security and you have an increase in the number of administrators in the whole system,” Buyco said. “And you have now a system where the executives are paid in terms of competitive salary in the private sector.”