Faculty

Faculty Association has ratified the agreement to have its members take the equivalent of a two-day-per-month furlough beginning Saturday, a news release said. The Academic Professionals of California, which represents about 2,400 student services employees, also has ratified an agreement to begin furloughs. Its members supported the agreement by 72 percent. Two employee groups — the 1,000 employees within the Service Employee Trades Council and the 10 members of the operating engineers at Cal Maritime — chose instead to lay off workers, the release said.

“We appreciate that we were able to come to an agreement with these two unions because furloughs will help to save jobs, preserve employee health and retirement benefits, and ultimately, allow us to better serve students,” Gail Brooks, CSU vice chancellor for human resources, said in the release. “Unprecedented reductions in state funding have left CSU with an enormous budget deficit, and reducing our employee costs is a critical part of CSU’s action plan to address this shortfall.”

With CFA and APC accepting the furloughs, now nearly all of the university system’s 47,000 employees will be subject to furloughs, represent about a 10 percent decrease in compensation. The California State University Employees Union, which represents 16,000 non-academic employees, has already accepted the furlough option and will begin furloughing on Saturday. Management and non-represented employees, including the chancellor, campus presidents and executives, also will begin the two-day-per-month furlough beginning in August.