(POMONA, Calif.) – Students, faculty, and staff members from across California gathered in Long Beach, Calif., Wednesday for the California Faculty Association’s Stop the Rip-Off March and Rally. More than 3,500 people showed up to the CFA protest, nicknamed “CSI: CSU,” to confront Charles Reed and the CSU Board of Trustees.

According to a CFA news release, demonstrators coined the slogan “CSI: CSU” after the popular television crime show, to “compare the once valued state university system to a crime scene investigation.” CFA leaders even went as far as to place mock crime scene tape around the rally area and the Office of the Chancellor where the CSU Board of Trustees were meeting.

“It’s not just about the money, it’s about the respect and quality of education for students,” said Rozalyn Gribben, a staff member who works at California Polytechnic State University Copy n’ Mail.

While many believe that faculty earnings were the sole purpose of this event, there were actually three major issues that the CFA has been struggling with.

The first issue brought to the CSU was a demand to drop the executive perks given to administrators. Most CSU executives receive six-figure salaries and executives that leave office and take other high-paying jobs keep their salaries after their departure.

Secondly, the CFA wants to reduce student fees, which have gone up 76 percent since 2002 and there are plans to increase them 10 percent each year until the end of the decade.According to a CFA handout entitled “23 reasons why faculty are mad,” a student would have to work 373 hours (more than 6X as long as in 1965) at minimum wage to pay current student fees of $2,520.

Finally, the CFA demands to negotiate fair salary contracts with faculty and all CSU employees. CFA and CSU wage negotiations have gone on since June 2005 but both sides have yet to come to an agreement.

Many in the CFA feel that it is unfair that top CSU executives are taking one-time pay hikes of up to $60,000 while CSU student enrollment is dropping due to their inability to pay tuition and the faculty are barely able to make ends meet.

“I can’t even put my own kids through college on a full time professor’s salary,” said anthropology professor Dorothy Wills. She has been teaching at Cal Poly for the past 18 years.

Although only half of Cal Poly faculty and staff members are a part of the CFA union, most professors are forced to work part time at other colleges and universities in order to make ends meet.

“They’re getting paid to screw us over,” said political science professor Jose Vadi.

The actual turnout of protest participants and supporters of the march and rally tripled the 1,000 expected by CFA officials and the 1,500 that Long Beach police officers originally prepared for.

“I didn’t think this many people would come,” said Mike Pierce, a fourth-year urban planning student who attended the event.

Local police accommodated the demonstrators by partially blocking off streets during the march and directing traffic during the rally.

“I was surprised at how supportive the police were,” said fourth-year urban planning student Debbie Roberts.

The outcome seemed to surprise everyone, especially since there seemed to be little encouragement for students to attend the rally.

“Not many teachers asked their students to come [to the rally],” said fourth-year international business student Maria Elena Vasquez.” You would think that they would want more people to come.”

At the event many CFA officials and student speakers spoke out against not only the CSU, but also Governor Schwarzenegger and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed in particular.

Chants such as “Reed, Reed, Stop the Greed!Give the people what they Need!” were called during the march as well as similar defaming songs thought up for the event against Reed and the CSU.

Mock pictures of Reed holding a bag of money and a blow up of one of his pay checks which indicates he makes $30,000 a month were displayed in the march and put up against the window outside of the boardroom where the trustees were meeting.

In October, the CFA unanimously approved a general membership vote authorizing the CFA Board of Directors to initiate job actions at the conclusion of the statutory bargaining process of a contract has not been successfully negotiated.

CFA officials say that job actions may include rolling walkouts, canceling classes, and/or a system wide strike. However, such actions would not take place until Spring 2007.

In response to the CFA’s actions, the CSU issued a statement regarding faculty negotiations stating that they “want to come to an agreement with the union so its hard working faculty can enjoy the salary increase they so much deserve.”

The California Faculty Association has 23,00 instructional faculty, librarians, counselors and coaches in the CSU.