California State University Chancellor Charles Reed is once again complicit with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in trying to exacerbate the deterioration of public higher education. Reed’s recent proposal to force all CSU employees and faculty — except campus safety personnel — to take two-day per month furloughs for the 2009-2010 academic year would be another nail in the coffin.
It was actually more of a “do it or else” threat than a “proposal.”
Reed’s nipple-twisting goon squad, the Labor Relations team, recently brought the furlough threat to the California Faculty Association. The labor team warned that if CFA, or any other collective bargaining unit, refuses the furlough plan, “the administration would instead begin contractual layoff procedures in order to drastically reduce that bargaining unit,” according to the CFA website.
The Chancellor’s Office enhanced the threat with real numbers. If CFA refuses, the CSU would sharpen the axe to the tune of “about 9,000 faculty members … or about 3,700 full-time equivalent positions.”
Rather than calling this plan “furlough,” we can refer to it as “Fuerher low” to further our claim that cuts to our higher education systems amount to academic genocide.
Not only has Schwarzenegger consistently attempted to use education at all levels as pawns in his nasty little game of budget chess with the state’s Legislature, he’s used his lap puppy Reed to be his enforcer. Each time “The Arnold” has told Reed to “cut the CSU until it bleeds,” Reed has snapped his heels together and complied.
Reed’s motley labor crew even has a plan how the unpaid furloughs would work, according to the CFA. Administration’s best plot would be to place all campuses on lockdown for “two Fridays each month … allowing it [the CSU system] to recover some additional savings from lower utility costs on those days.”
Does anybody care to whip out the old slide rule to calculate actual utility cost savings as opposed to extra time spent chasing a degree? Fewer teachers, less class offerings and overcrowded Monday through Thursday classrooms will certainly allow for fewer elective courses. We can virtually smell small programs being tossed on the fire.
The CSU has lost “at least 1,000 lecturers in the past academic year.
Either scenario presented to the CFA is absurd. Furlough Fridays would eliminate the opportunity for students to take classes necessary to accommodate work schedules; work that students need more now that they’ll have to pay the 10 percent fee increases passed by the Board of Trustees.
There would be no sacred cow, but furloughs or layoffs would create a sacrificial herd of students. Tenured faculty would be subject to the furloughs because the contract stipulates layoffs are done at the campus level, not at the system level.
The CFA is circulating a Q&A about furloughs versus layoffs. In the meantime, it seems Reed is content with assuming the dying cockroach position and conceding to King Schwarzenegger’s will — to make higher education less accessible to all but the elite.
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