Almost a year after receiving a 3.5 percent raise, California State University faculty members are still fighting for better pay.

George Diehr, a member of the California Faculty Association’s bargaining team, said negotiations for a new faculty salary contract has reached a stalemate on Thursday during an informational chapter meeting at Sacramento State.

Fewer than 100 concerned faculty members and the association’s staff wearing black shirts with the words Stop the Rip-Offs filed into the Redwood Room for the meeting shortly after President Alexander Gonzalez’s fall address.

The union’s bargaining team is asking for better program funding of General Salary Increases and Service Step Increases to guarantee faculty pay raises ?” General Salary Increases are for faculty across the board, while Service Step Increases are granted within each level of staff ?” such as assistant professors, junior faculty and senior faculty ?” and are based on years of employment and experience.

However, since a week-long negotiating session ended in late July, the union and California State University administration bargaining teams have yet to meet again for further discussion.

“The current conditions are killing our ability to recruit and retain quality faculty,” said Cecil Canton, Sac State chapter president of the union.

The union’s bargaining team is opposed to CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed’s pay plan for three reasons, Diehr said.

First are the discretionary pay raises, which would allow campus presidents to give raises without faculty input and without an appeal process, Diehr said.

Second is that Reed’s plan doesn’t provide adequate funding for General Salary Increases and Service Step Increases, he said. The current pay plan has caps that cause faculty salaries to flatten out and doesn’t offer space for promotion, Diehr said.

Since the hiring rate of salaries has to adjust to current inflation and economy, there are newly hired faculty that get paid more than faculty who have been around for years and have not gotten any promotions or raises, Canton said.

There is a salary gap and lack of incentive on CSU campuses compared to comparable universities, Canton said.

Third, Reed’s plan for General Salary Increases is that they would be contingent of CSU administration receiving additional funding from the state Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, while requiring faculty to work with the administration to gain funding, Diehr said.

Since it is not specified how the administration would request additional funding, it could come from raising student fees. Diehr said it would be unwise to agree to raising student fees for funding, because faculty would potentially oppose it in the future.

Ultimately, what happens to faculty is going to be reflected in the classrooms, Norma Getierrez, a staff member of the union, said.

“The lack of pay affects students in classrooms, because as classes get crowded, each student gets less advising from the professors,” said Getierrez. ” By showing support for our faculty, the administration will see the importance of having good faculty and keeping them around. They are not only valuable in the classrooms, but many of them support clubs and activities by becoming advisers for certain groups.”

Hence the reason why the union adopted their new slogan: “Stop the Rip-offs.”

“Stop the Rip-offs starts with our defense against the assault on the dignity of the basic unit of the university: the classroom,” Vice President of the union Lillian Taiz said in a press release. ” The students, professors, counselors, coaches, the public – all of us know it’s not right when a privileged few executives and bureaucrats enrich themselves at the expense of the health of a great state institution and resource.”

Mary Chou can be reached at [email protected]