California State University Chancellor Charles Reed sent a memo to the Hornet addressing faculty concerns over faculty salary and workload, in response to rising faculty union pressure.

Negotiations between the CSU and union over the next salary contract??which will decide salary and working conditions for faculty??began April 12. The union has complained about failure to replace tenured professors, and says there is a 7.9 percent lag in CSU salaries with “comparable institutions.”

The union has threatened a strike if an agreement cannot be reached by Fall 2001.

“CSU?s appreciation for faculty is demonstrated by the fact their average annual salary of $72,000 is 20 percent higher than the national average,” Reed wrote. “Over the past four years, the CSU faculty salary increases total 23.5 percent compared to the national average of 14.9 percent.”

The CSU is asking for a 6 percent increase this year, Reed wrote.

“You may hear union activists claim that only one tenure track position has been added in the last five years. However, the fact is that the more than 2,300 tenure track faculty hired over the past five years has helped maintain our low 18 to one student faculty ratio, which keeps CSU class sizes small,” according to Reed.

The Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP), which allows many tenured professors to work part time and earn full pay, has made it difficult to afford more tenured replacements, Reed wrote.

“Ten percent of CSU tenured faculty are in this program and over the past several years, half of retiring faculty have entered the program,” Reed wrote. “However, it also prevents the CSU from hiring full-time tenure track replacements and causes the CSU to hire one or two part-time faculty replacements to ensure that students have access to the courses they need and the small class sizes they expect.”