By: Luke Wukmer, part-time mathematics lecturer
Guest opinion
My core belief is that the California State University system is worth investing in. Our fight is for the survival of quality, affordable higher education itself.
Two weeks ago saw the largest higher education strike in U.S. history. The CSU is the largest public university system in the United States. There is a chance that our action (or inaction) will serve as a litmus test for higher education across our country. By unions, by chancellors and by the general population.
In her welcome message this semester, President Conoley said, “The coming semester will require our collective participation to bring solutions to unprecedented budget pressures.” She is bracing us for more bad news.
Entire colleges across the country are shuttering in the face of budgetary mismanagement. Some CSUs face these threats.
The status quo suggests that education is not important—that faculty jobs are not worth doing. And that the crises affecting our students are not worth fixing in a timely manner. They claim there is no money to address our needs, despite a 30% tuition hike.
I love this school and cherish the opportunity to work with my students and my department. I do not take it for granted. However, while entering my fifth year, it has become clear there’s no path to fair compensation for my time.
Year after year, faculty are told to accept subpar contract terms, and that we’ll make amends next bargaining cycle. Our strike was a manifestation of our need for immediate improvements. We struck in the pouring rain at 7:30 a.m. We largely shut Long Beach State down that day, as did other CSUs. The strike was to grow throughout the week. Events were planned. Bernie Sanders and Katie Porter had amplified our platform. Good Morning America was coming out.
Our hopes were dashed almost immediately. The strike was called off that night. Our union had reached a premature and subpar tentative agreement with the CSU. We were shocked.
We scrambled to resume classes on Tuesday, fearing disciplinary action. Students who had bravely stood up for faculty were now told to return to class without comment.
Two weeks later, the sting remains. Why did it end so soon? The strike vote was 95% in favor. Many were ready to fight for at least a week. There have been town halls nearly every day since. Hours of Q&A with angry faculty, with few speaking in favor of the TA.
Meanwhile, the CFA’s messaging has changed almost daily. First, historic win. Then, we hear you’re angry, but you don’t understand what a good deal this is. Then, okay, you’re angry, but the deal’s still better than you think. Then, okay, so you’re really angry, but if you don’t agree to the terms, the alternative is way worse.
Throughout this process, it’s become clear to me that our union in its present form is two things: utterly nontransparent and deeply undemocratic. We pushed for clarity from our union, tirelessly conveying that the TA is not enough on multiple fronts.
Students would see little change. We, faculty, demanded that the CSU respect a 1-1,500 ratio of mental health counselors to students (a threshold provided by our accrediting body), to address an abject crisis. CSULB has only 14.5 licensed healthcare professionals to serve over 40,000 undergraduates. I am consistently told by students that they reach out to CAPS and don’t hear back for weeks. This forces compassionate faculty to act as unlicensed counselors to a student body that desperately needs more support. Their school is failing them.
We rallied behind this and other critical demands. For marginalized faculty to have representation when harassed by campus police. Lactation rooms for mothers. Increased parental leave. More gender-neutral bathrooms. The TA lacks concrete gains.
Salaries remain integral. It’s understood amongst lecturers that they should teach at two or three different schools if they want to make ends meet. This semester, I teach four upper division classes. That is 140 students. This is considered 80% of “full-time.” In 2023, I made $42,000. These two weeks have brought many such stories together. I talked to a lecturer from California State University, San Bernardino who has taught for 23 years and their full-time rate is less than that of a K-12 teacher, who are underpaid in their own right. We feel taken advantage of.
I still have hope. I have kept my rain-destroyed strike sign as a reminder of what I felt that day— that we were on the cusp of something big. But instead, we were shut down. Since then, we have been fighting to fix a dysfunctional union that let us down and to win the contract we deserve.
We cannot afford a whittling away of vital public institutions due to budgetary mismanagement. The position of the CSU chancellor shows a fundamental misunderstanding about how strongly we feel about these issues. She has lost sight of our worth. What the students, the CSU and higher education itself are worth.
The faculty and students deserve a sincere apology from the CSU and the CFA and a commitment to a better path forward.
I will vote NO on this tentative agreement and continue the fight for what we need. I have a real fear that if we return to business as usual, we will go back to our classes and look into the eyes of maybe the last generation to benefit from quality, affordable higher education.