The CSU gave up worker raises but increased executive pay

By Ernesto Torres, especially for CalMatters

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I have worked at Cal State San Bernardino since 2017, leading a team of skilled tradespeople who maintain the buildings that thousands of students and faculty rely on every day. My team is one of many in the California State University system whose work keeps campuses safe, functional and open for the nearly half a million students CSU serves.

Our work is hands-on and can be less visible than the roles people typically associate with universities, such as professors or administrators. But it is fundamental to CSU’s success because the 43 million square feet of infrastructure on 22 campuses could not function without the electricians, plumbers, carpenters, locksmiths and maintenance workers who maintain it.

When I joined CSU, I believed that a public institution that prides itself as a place of opportunity for low-income students would show respect for its workforce with predictable promotions, solid benefits and a clear path to retirement. I am the father of three young sons, living in one of the most expensive states in the country; they are mandatory.

For a moment, it looked like that expectation might finally become a reality. Last year, after the CSU denied credible pay steps to its workforce for nearly three decades, Teamsters Local 2010 won them back. This victory followed 18 months of bargaining, strikes and hard organizing. This represents not only a financial breakthrough, but also long-awaited recognition for thousands of workers.

CSU is now reneging on those promised contract raises and step increases, even though it’s getting full state funding (via a loan) designed to pay workers more. This move is not only disappointing but scandalous because workers fought for and won this funding.

When the initial state budget proposed cuts to the CSU, thousands of union members mobilized. We have advocated for CSU, lobbied and petitioned the state to restore the necessary funding so we can finally be paid fairly. Because of us, the CSU received full funding in the state budget, funding intended to restore the rate of wage increases.

The CSU has since pocketed that money while claiming it doesn’t have the funding to provide raises to its workers, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, CSU has significant salary increases approved for campus presidents and eliminated administrative salary caps designed to prevent excessive growth in executive compensation. CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia received more than $1 million salary and other bonuses just this year.

The money is there. What’s missing is a willingness to pay the frontline workers—who keep campuses running—what we’re owed.

To add insult to injury, the CSU offered workers a one time bonus instead of the multi-year raises that were guaranteed in our contract.

A one time bonus will not help cover my sons college expenses. This will not help me or my colleagues with the rising cost of living in California. It won’t help much with mortgages or rising insurance costs.

As a one-income household supporting three children, I need the contract raises I’m owed, not a lump-sum payment designed to subjugate workers.

This broken promise is not just unfair; this undermines the social mission of CSU. The CSU cannot claim to be a “powerful agent of social mobility and economic prosperity” when it treats its workers this way.

Throughout the CSU system, frustration is widespread and growing. Workers know that the refusal to pay the promised raises is not the result of financial shortfalls, but rather a reflection of the CSU’s priorities of taking care of those at the top.

That’s why members of Teamsters Local 2010 are poised to go on strike over unfair labor practices on 22 CSU campuses from February 17-20. No worker wants to strike. But retaining our labor is the only tool left to force CSU to honor our contract and the promise they made to us.

If the CSU wants to uphold the values ​​it promotes publicly, including fairness and access to opportunity, it must begin by honoring the commitments it has made to its workers.

The question is not whether CSU can afford to pay us. The question is whether the university is willing to put the well-being of its workforce ahead of greed.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.