While a little sore about not having Wednesday and Thursday off – the planned dates for faculty strikes here – some students are glad that the teachers’ salary contract has been agreed upon.

“The idea was kind of nice to have a day off,” said Melissa Kody, a junior philosophy major. “But I’m more glad that they made an agreement instead of resorting to a strike.”

A tentative agreement between the CSU system and the California Faculty Association regarding the faculty contract was reached April 3, avoiding the two-day rolling strikes that were supposed to begin this week, said CFA President John Travis in an April 3 teleconference.

In the agreement, all faculty will receive a 20.7 percent increase over the span of four years. Of this 20.7 percent, 3 percent will be retroactive pay since July 2006, according to the CFA website.

Alice Sunshine, CFA spokeswoman, said she was unsure of when faculty would receive the retropay.

For the 2006-07 year, faculty will receive a 4 percent raise. In the 2007-08 year, they will receive a 5.7 percent raise.

In the next year, there will be a 5 percent salary raise and in 2009-10 there will be a 6 percent raise.

Four service steps will be given to all eligible faculty members, which currently encompasses about one-third of all current CSU teachers, according to the website. Faculty are eligible for the Service Step Increases based on their years of service with the CSU system, Sunshine said.

All other teachers will be eligible for these 2.65 percent steps the next year that they were deemed eligible.

Faculty should expect these wage increases every anniversary of their hiring dates until 2010, beginning this year, Sunshine said.

With a base 20.7 percent salary increase, the California Post-secondary Education Commission gap between full-time and part-time faculty will be closed “completely,” Travis said during the April 3 teleconference.

The commission provides information to “the legislative and the executive branches of the government with major policy and planning issues concerning education” above high school-level, according to the commission’s website.

In October 2006, the CSU administration placed ads in 18 CSU newspapers, offering a 24.87 percent salary increase. The ads stated that the CFA’s bargaining team would not allow its members to review and vote on this offer.

The CFA said that if such an offer was made, then the CFA would have been aware and members would have the chance to review and comment.

Travis said the offer stated in the ads was more than what was offered on the table.

Besides the topic of salary, the contract also allowed union members to request more time off to advocate for union causes.

The contract also helps new faculty members by letting summer session courses count toward “time-based enhancement and part-time lecturers.”

Faculty members who are on maternity or paternity leave will now have to do so within 75 days of the child’s birth. This expanded leave was increased from a maximum of 30 days.

Also, there is some protection for teachers who are being evaluated on their performance. This agreement gives faculty a longer period of time to establish and make clear the timeline of the evaluation.

All evaluators must now give faculty members prior notice before sitting down in a class. Three-year lecturers’ evaluations have been reduced to one every three years.

Teachers who want to go on leave to increase their experience in their fields now have more chances to do so. Teachers can even go on “full year/half pay” vacations, which were before exempt from the acceptable list.

The CFA will be reviewing the contract, and a vote should be made within the next few weeks, Travis said.

“I’m glad that the teachers got what they wanted,” said Ana Quinonez, a freshman liberal studies major. “Still, something needs to be done for the students.”

Jamie Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]