Some Cal State faculty say they get food stamps

Some California State University faculty say their salary is so low that they must work two jobs, can’t afford to buy a home and at times depend on food stamps and other government assistance to get by.

Those and other hardships were recounted in a report released Tuesday by the California Faculty Assn., which contends that the 23campus system is failing to invest in its teaching workforce.

The faculty group this year surveyed more than 5,500 members and found widespread discontent and demoralization about their financial well-being.

On average, members earn $45,000 annually before taxes and other deductions, the union said. The number is based on earnings of fulltime professors and those hired on a part-time basis, who make up about half of the faculty.

“Faculty salaries are dropping to the point that it’s hard to call teaching at CSU a middle-class profession,” faculty association President Lillian Taiz, said during a call with reporters.

Cal State officials questioned both the findings in the report and the timing of it. The two sides soon will begin contract negotiations.

The report, “Race to the Bottom, Losing Ground and Losing Faith,” is one of a series produced by the faculty union that it says reveals a trend of losses in salary and positions for faculty compared with increases in those areas for executives.

The union represents about 25,000 Cal State professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches. About 100 faculty members held a rally Tuesday at the Capitol in Sacramento.

The timing of the reports is strategic: After going five years without a raise, faculty won a 1.34% pay hike in 2013 and a 1.6% boost last year.

The latest three-year pact called for the two sides to reopen salary and benefit talks for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

“The California Faculty Assn.’s claims about the university’s investment in faculty and its impact on students are not only misleading, they are being made because the union is attempting to enhance its position in salary negotiations starting in May,” spokeswoman Laurie Weidner said.

Weidner also called into question many of the salary figures cited by the report. New, tenure-track faculty hired as assistant professors started at a base pay of $72,519 in 2014 for about 9.5 months of work, she said. That salary figure does not include $41,300 in health and retirement benefits.

The average salary for a part-time lecturer was $48,823 for a teaching load of one to four classes per semester. The lowest hourly rate for part-time Cal State lecturers was nearly $32, compared with a national part-time average of $28.86, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But faculty officials argue that those “base salary” averages do not paint an accurate picture of actual takehome pay.