California State University’s maintenance workers are going on strike. Here’s what to know
If you live, work or learn on a California State University campus, don’t expect anyone to respond to your maintenance requests next Tuesday.
The 1,100 skilled tradespeople represented by Teamsters Local 2010 — which include electricians, plumbers, mechanics and locksmiths among others — will walk off the job from midnight on Nov. 14 to midnight on Nov. 15. The strike will effectively halt all maintenance and work orders across 22 of the CSU’s 23 campuses.
“It’s going to have a big effect on operations,” said Jason Rabinowitz, the union’s secretary-treasurer. “Our members are the unsung heroes that, day in and day out, keep the place running and take care of the problems.”
The union argues that the state’s largest university system has failed to bargain in good faith and also interfered with members’ protected union activities, such as the right to stage pickets. The Teamsters have so far filed eight unfair labor practice charges against CSU, with one more on the way. The state’s Public Employment Relations Board ruled in the union’s favor in at least one case — the union accused the university of interfering with informational pickets at San Diego State.
In early October, PERB granted CSU’s declaration of impasse and appointed a mediator to help the parties move forward. The union simultaneously took a strike vote and garnered support from 94% of voting members, who Rabinowitz says are “fired up.”
“All that we want is some appreciation for our work and recognition in the form of a fair contract,” Rabinowitz said. “We hope they’ll pay attention and start bargaining in good faith with us.”
The latest offer on the table from CSU includes a 5% general salary increase backdated to July 1, 2023, and a move to a step-based raise system next October. The union has called the CSU proposal “inadequate.”
The university, on the other hand, denies the allegations of unfair labor practices and believes any work stoppage would be illegal.
“Since the parties are still engaged in the impasse process, CSU does not believe the Teamsters’ planned strike is lawful,” said CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. “Should a strike take place, all CSU universities will remain open and have contingency plans in place to maintain full university operations with as minimal disruption as possible for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to our campuses.”
The Teamsters ask that students, faculty and other unionized staff on campus honor their picket lines on campus. The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians and coaches, also authorized a strike early last week, although they have yet to announce a strike of their own. Teamsters are expected to rally with CFA members outside CSU’s Office of the Chancellor in Long Beach during Tuesday’s board of trustees’ meeting.
The Teamsters might have fewer members than their peer unions, Rabinowitz said, but the “critical and essential nature” of their members’ work means their strike will likely have a disproportionately big effect on campus life.
Sacramento State maintenance shop in ‘dire need’ of staff
Tony Valdez thought his maintenance team was understaffed when he first started working for Sacramento State in late 2008. Back then, there were 14 “building service engineers” who each maintained about three or four campus buildings.
Today’s team is about half that size as people leave for higher-paying jobs elsewhere, Valdez said.
Winter is also more demanding on the staff, as engineers have to constantly monitor the steam-powered boilers that deliver heat to the majority of campus buildings. When staff get pulled into boiler-watch duty, that leaves even fewer people available to respond to work orders and maintenance calls.
On Fridays, Valdez said, there’s only one maintenance engineer available for the entire campus. To make matters worse, two more people are retiring in December.
“We are in dire need. It’s past emergency status,” he said. “We’re in the business of putting out fires, not maintenance.”
There’s a possibility that they’ll have to shut down the boilers periodically if they can’t find staff to supervise them, Valdez said. That means most campus buildings — including the upper administration and university president’s offices — wouldn’t have heat. (Student dorms are on a different system, according to Valdez.)
“Every single day, everybody’s talking about how bad our work tempo is. You can visibly see the stress and the worry in every single person’s face,” Valdez said. “Nobody wants to go on strike, but it’s absolutely necessary.”
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