CSU was the only public employer in California to give no raises to any workers in 2025. Across the CSU system, presidents, executives and administrators continue to receive pay raises. In November 2025, the California Board of Trustees adopted a resolution that paved the way for significant salary increases for top executives of 5 to 20 percent and repealed a prior policy that limited a president’s pay to no more than 10 percent of their predecessor’s. It also created bonuses of up to 15 percent of an executive’s base pay and increased retirement benefits and housing stipends. In January 2026, the CSU Board of Trustees approved another resolution to increase the salaries of vice chancellors. These increases range from 4 to 17 percent. The President of San Jose State University earns $546,066 with a 15% annual performance incentive.
By contrast, instead of a pay raise, CSU is offering the California Faculty Association (CFA) a one time bonus and reneging on its contractual obligation to provide pay raises and step increases to workers in other CSU unions.
Assemblymember Ahrens introduced AB 1831 that would cap executive compensation at the CSU system. That’s an important step in the right direction, but unions are still struggling to obtain pay raises and step increases.
The California Faculty Association’s (CFA) contract expired in June 2025. The contract was extended twice, and CFA, which represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches across CSU campuses, is now bargaining for a new contract. Instead of the salary increase that CFA is seeking, management’s salary counter proposal is a one-time 3% taxable lump sum. The lump sum would not count towards retirement accrual or as base salaries for future raises.
CSU is also proposing drastic changes to the union’s ability to engage in strikes, sympathy strikes, and unfair labor practice (ULP) strikes and detrimental changes to the grievance procedure. Management’s counterproposal includes a ban on sympathy strikes including support to other unions on strike; a prohibition on CFA engaging in an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike until the ULP was been fully adjudicated by the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB); and a prohibition on CFA members using their sick leave to participate in a strike without a doctor’s note. CSU is also proposing limits on introducing new information during the grievance procedure and limits on matters that can be arbitrated.
CFA has filed numerous PERB unfair labor practice charges. The union filed the most recent unfair labor practice charge against CSU management on April 15, 2026 because of a message sent by Chancellor Mildred Garcia. On January 5, 2026, the Chancellor sent a “Welcome Back” and “Important Announcement” message to all employees, including represented employees, suggesting that CSU’s unions are the only obstacle to obtaining the paltry one-time bonus. CFA alleged that this kind of message deters employees from joining, trusting, or remaining in their unions in violation of the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA). In her message, the Chancellor failed to explain that the union was opposing the one time bonus because it was far less than the salary raise proposed by CFA’s bargaining committee.
In addition to CFA, the Teamsters, the California State University Employees Union (CSUEU), UAW 4123 which represents 35,000 clerical, custodial, and student assistant members and which has just begun bargaining, and the Statewide University Police Association contend that CSU hasviolated their contracts by refusing to provide raises and step increases that CSU is contractually obligated to provide. All three unions have contracts with similar language that make these raises contingent on state funding which the unions contend that CSU now has.
CSU leaders argue that their ongoing state funding in 2025 is down $144 million, allowing them to reopen talks on the salary and benefit terms of those contracts. But union members state that CSU is violating the contract because the state has offered CSU a one-time, interest-free loan of $144 million so there is no shortfall.
According to Teamsters Local 2010 which represents plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, locksmiths, and building maintenance staff, CSU violated the contract when CSU reopened bargaining, leading the union to file an unfair labor practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board regarding this issue.
CSU’s position is disheartening because the workers fought for and won state funding. When the initial state budget proposed cuts to CSU, thousands of union members mobilized and advocated for CSU to restore the funding needed so union members could finally be paid fairly.
Members of Teamsters Local 2010 picketed outside the Cal State University’s Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach for higher wages and benefits on Nov. 18, 2025. About 1,100 union skilled trades workers with the Teamsters went on strike from Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 to February 20, 2026 at the 22 California State University campuses.
At a press conference that Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi attended with members of Teamsters Local 2010, CSUEU, and CFA, he stated that he stands in “solidarity” with union workers and called on the chancellor and the trustees to keep their promise. We need to pass AB 1831 to limit CSU executive compensation, to stand in solidarity with CSU unions, to urge CSU to provide pay raises instead of one time bonuses, and to honor its contractual obligations.
Ruth Silver Taube is the Supervising Attorney of the Workers’ Rights Practice at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center at Santa Clara University School of Law, Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, Legal Services Provider Co-Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, a delegate to the Santa Clara County’s Human Trafficking Commission, and the Supervising Attorney of the Santa Clara County Office of Labor Standards Legal Advice Line. Before law school, she was a journeyman machinist, President of International Association of Machinists Local 547, and Senior Field Representative for SEIU Local 535. She previously taught at Njala University in Sierra Leone with CUSO, the Canadian Peace Corps.
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