California College of the Arts employees in the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 walked off the job Feb. 8-11 at the Oakland and San Francisco campuses. The labor union, which also represents CCA adjunct faculty, alleged that the employer is committing unfair labor practices that violate federal law in the first such labor action at a private college in California since a brief one-day work stoppage at Pepperdine University 46 years ago.
The employer and represented employees began the bargaining process for a first contract in October 2019. According to Bloomberg Law, the median time (half above and below) to negotiate a first labor contract is one year. Early last December, 97% of the CCA staff that SEIU Local 1021 represents, voted to authorize its contract negotiating members to call a strike.
The protracted contract negotiations did not sit well with about 100 CCA staff (admissions officers, librarians, IT specialists and studio managers) in SEIU Local 1021 who in early February, walked a picket line to win economic demands, such as higher pay, in the high-rent SF Bay Area. Most represented workers have had no raises since January 2020 and no retirement contributions for a full year, according to SEIU.
The lowest paid SEIU Local 1021 worker earns just under $37,000 annually, the highest gets $110,000 per year, according to the union. One of the strikers walking the picket line is Cynthia Santos. She is a CCA support specialist and alumnus, who has been involved with the private college since 2011.
David Owens-Hill is a CCA spokesperson. “CCA remains ready and willing to negotiate as frequently as needed to achieve a fair and mutually beneficial collective bargaining agreement with our unionized staff,” he told The Progressive Populist. “The college has a comprehensive proposal on the table that provides wage increases for our valued staff while also maintaining our ongoing commitment to student financial aid and a financially sustainable future for the college. At a time when we are making rapid progress in negotiations and have reached agreement on so many items, a strike benefits no one—not our staff, not our faculty, and certainly not our students, who have just returned to fully in-person classes for the first time in nearly two years.
“The college has called on the union to show respect for the process and continue our progress by coming back to the negotiating table. Our goal is to work together to reach an agreement as quickly as possible, and return everyone’s full energy and focus to our core mission of educating students.”
The CCA strike shut down regular operations and classes during the four day-strike, and put the administration’s unfair labor practices and refusal to bargain in good faith into news media and public discussion, Jennie Camejo of SEIU Local 1021, told The Progressive Populist. “We hope that administration will be ready to come back to the table serious about reaching a fair, equitable agreement for all staff and for adjuncts as well. We will continue to keep the pressure on until that happens.”
Employee militancy is part of—not apart from—the pandemic economy. There is a demographic angle on militant employees.
According to labor reporter Mike Elk in “How Black & Brown Workers Are Redefining the Strike in a Digital COVID Era,” nonwhite workers are in the vanguard of the strike wave during the pandemic. “With essential workers disproportionately hailing from communities of color, the strike wave movement has been particularly strong in these communities,” he writes.
Where do things go next for CCA and its union employees seeking a fair first contract? “We have agreed to enter mediation and have offered dates for both the staff unit and the adjunct unit,” according to Camejo, “but CCA has not responded, despite claiming publicly that they want to go back to the table and reach an agreement as quickly as possible.”
Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2022
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