Cal State faculty to vote whether to go on strike

The faculty of the 23-campus Cal State University system is scheduled to vote next month on whether to authorize strikes if fact-finding and bargaining fail to produce a new contract, union officials said Wednesday.

The vote during the first two weeks of March could allow the California Faculty Assn. to call one-day rolling walkouts throughout the system possibly starting in late March or early April and a longer general strike later, union President John Travis said in a telephone news conference.

After nearly two years of deadlocked talks, a neutral fact-finder is expected to issue a report on a proposed settlement next month. Then the two sides would have 10 days for further negotiations before any walkouts by the 23,000 professors, counselors, coaches and librarians could start.

Travis, a professor at Humboldt State University, said the union was concentrating now on one- or two-day strikes because those “won’t affect any particular student dramatically.”

Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State system spokeswoman, said administrators were hoping that fact-finding would produce a settlement.

“If, in the end, there are some rolling strikes, we are confident our faculty will do nothing to hurt the students,” she said.

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