California State University System, Faculty Reach Tentative Agreement To Potentially Avoid Strike

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An unprecedented five-day strike by California State University professors was postponed indefinitely on Thursday as the 23-campus system and its faculty union announced they had reached a tentative deal in a months-long salary dispute.

The California Faculty Association and Cal State officials said in a joint announcement Thursday that details of the agreement would not be disclosed until Friday. But they said a proposed contract would be presented to union members for a vote in the weeks ahead.

The faculty association, which represents 26,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches, had scheduled a system-wide strike for April 13-15 and April 18-19 to protest the size of the pay increases the university planned to give its members this year.

Union members currently are in the second year of a three-year contract that included across-the-board pay raises of 3 percent for the 2014-15 school year. Under that contract, salaries for subsequent years had to be renegotiated.

The faculty association sought a 5 percent salary increase for 2015-16 along with a 2.7 percent pay bump based on years of service. The university offered raises of 2 percent - the same increase it had given other employees.

CSU is the nation's largest public university system, with about 460,000 students. It has not been subject to a full faculty strike since system-wide collective bargaining began in the early 1980s.

Union members authorized strikes in 2007, 2011 and 2012. Strikes were averted in 2007 and 2012 when negotiators for the administration and the union reached settlements. A one-day walkout was staged at two campuses in 2011.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.