photo credit: Courtesy Sonoma State University

The union representing faculty, lecturers, librarians counselors and coaches at all 23 California State University campuses, including Sonoma State, has announced a week-long walkout starting Monday.

The sides remain far apart and staff have lost patience after management made what it called its last and best offer last week.

Damien Wilson is chair of the California Faculty Association's communication and outreach section at Sonoma State University.

"It's an unfortunate situation because none of us are wanting to go on strike, but we've reached a series of impasses and we've just finally got to that point where management have stuck their stick in the ground and said 'this is as far as we're going to go,' and the CFA and faculty have turned around and said, 'that's not far enough,' Wilson said."

Wilson maintains that large gulfs remain between the university system and its employees over a number of issues including workloads, class size, parental leave, benefits, the number of counselors, as well as salary.

The union is asking for a 12 percent increase during the current year...CSU has offered 5 percent.

For lecturers, and new faculty, pay rates, according to Wilson, are untenable. "If you ever happen to be lucky enough to take on an assistant professor position, you're looking at just over $51,000 as a starting point, now in California the poverty line for a family of four is $30,000," Wilson said.

The federal poverty guidelines for 2024 consider the threshold $31,200 for a family of four, though the cost of living is considerably higher locally. State housing officials consider a family of four in Sonoma County with an income below $100,650 to be "low income" and eligible for subsidized housing.

The five day walkout is scheduled to end Friday. As to how close this unprecedented action is to resolution---much is up in the air,  "We're going to re-convene at the end of the strike, and we are going to take our next steps based on the feedback that we have from management and based on the will of the faculty and the students of the CSU," Wilson said.