Thousands of professors, lecturers and other academic staff members walked off the job in a protest that was expected to cancel most classes early in the academic period. They plan to strike for five days.
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    10 months ago

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    The California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches, began a five-day strike that will affect nearly 460,000 students who attend the nation’s largest four-year public university system.

    Workers across industries are grappling with wages that have not kept pace with high inflation, as well as the rising cost of housing and other living expenses, especially in California, where a busy period of walkouts in 2023 was called a “hot labor summer.”

    leaders and the faculty association have been negotiating since May, and the union announced earlier this month that it planned to hold a five-day strike after university officials offered raises of 5 percent.

    “If we were to agree to the increase that these unions are demanding, we would have to make severe cuts to programs,” Leora Freedman, the university system’s vice chancellor for human resources, said in a news conference on Friday.

    The union also wants to increase the salary floor for full-time employees to $64,360 from $54,360, and is seeking other changes, including caps on class sizes and an expansion of paid parental leave.

    Hazel Kelly, a spokeswoman for the system, said that all campuses would remain open during the strike and that university leaders would try to limit disruptions to students.

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