LA County labor group says they'll stand with Cal State faculty if they strike

If the California State University faculty strike this spring, more than 800,000 union workers will stand in solidarity with them, the Los Angeles Federation of Labor announced Tuesday.

Rusty Hicks, executive director of the L.A. Federation of Labor, appeared Tuesday at a press conference with Jennifer Eagan, president of the California Faculty Association, to announce the strike sanction. 

In case you need to catch up, the California Faculty Association is the union that represents CSU faculty. If a 5 percent raise is not offered to faculty soon, the chair of their bargaining team, Kevin Wehr, says they will more than likely strike in the near future. Wehr is also a professor of sociology at CSU Sacramento.

CSU has proposed a 2 percent general salary increase, but the CFA voted in November 2015 with 94.4 percent approval to strike unless a 5 percent increase is placed on the table. 

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"If management sees the light and gives us what is fair, then they can avert a strike," Wehr told KPCC. "The power is in their hands. They can make the decision tomorrow." 

Fifteen different entities have granted strike sanctions to the CFA that would affect schools across the state. The L.A. Federation of Labor's announcement would affect the areas around Cal State schools in Dominguez Hills, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge and Pomona.

Strike sanctions, as CFA explains on its website, mean that in the event of a strike, union workers would put a halt to services like deliveries to the campuses, and public buses would not enter school campuses.

A fact-finding committee has completed its meetings, and now both CSU management and the CFA will submit briefs to the fact-finding panel — comprised of one member from each side and a neutral third party. 

Once a report is finalized and made public by the panel, Wehr said that the faculty will legally be able to strike. He said the rough timeline would be between six and eight weeks, and that if a strike takes place, it would be while classes are in session. 

"The faculty has suffered over the last 10 years," Wehr said. "We've actually been losing ground since 2004. This is nothing new; it's feeling like a pattern of disrespect that management has for faculty."