The California State University Employees Union (CSUEU), which represents approximately 23% of CSU staff as of fall 2024, is alleging that the university system has not upheld a stipulation in the 2023-2026 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The CBA said that employees would get “full steps implementation” and receive raises based on the number of years a member of the union has been an employee at the CSU by Oct. 1 of this year.
However, the CSUEU said that in early October, following the set contractual dates, the implementation of the steps was set to take place. However, only a partial implementation took place, which severely undercut what employees were set to receive if the plan was implemented in full. The partial implementation of the plan only guarantees that employees receive the step that is the “immediate next step above their current salary.”
This could mean the difference between thousands of dollars for some, including the CSUEU Cal State LA Chapter President, Kenneth Castillo, who is an equipment systems specialist in the Information Technology Department on campus.
Another member, Kelsey Brown, the Cal State LA Unit 9 representative and a communications specialist at the University Library, said that if she was on the right step–which would’ve been step 8–her raise would’ve been around an additional $10,000 annually. However, Brown said that her pre-step salary was so low it was not on the steps chart, so she was moved to step one, which equaled to an additional $60 per year (before taxes).
In the case of Castillo, who’s been working at Cal State LA since September 2001, he was set to receive the highest step for 20 years of service in October. (This would’ve increased his annual salary from $55,000 to over $105,000.) But because the CSU did not follow through, he’s making close to what he made when he first started work at the university 24 years ago.
“We go above and beyond and we understand that we’re not going to get paid what we should be getting paid out there, but all we ask for is a little respect,” Castillo said. “We ask for acknowledgement and we ask to be compensated for what we deserve.”
This is just a sampling of situations that are playing out across the CSU and at Cal State LA where employees of the university and university system are not getting paid per the agreed-upon contract and are instead getting paid an additional $30 to $60 per year. However, they could be getting upwards of $50,00 or more if the CSU abided by the contract, according to Castillo.
In some cases, Brown said, new employees are being paid more than employees that have been at the university for several years or decades.
The only raises Brown, Castillo and other union members are getting is the annual cost of living adjustments, which are also called General Salary Increases (GSI). These are small 2% to 3% increases, but it is nothing in comparison to the salary changes that would come if the steps were fully implemented, Castillo said. For the 2023-2026 CBA, the agreed–to annual increases equaled about 5% annually, however, there were continued stipulations that would determine the final GSI depending on how closely California abided by budget allocations and if it was complete or not.
CSU Spokeswoman Amy Bentley-Smith said in a statement that the school system did not receive the total amount of funding from the state to fully implement the steps plan, but a partial plan that placed employees “on the closest (higher) salary step to their current salary as required by the CBA” was in place.
Castillo said that while administrator pay and presidential pay was continually rising, other employees are continuing to see sharp disparities in their increases.
“The CSU is committed to fair and competitive salaries for all employees,” Bentley-Smith said.
In the current version of the contract, there are a total of 20 steps available to employees to earn yearly raises based on service time with the CSU, according to the 2023-2026 CBA with the CSUEU.
The CSUEU said that this is a systemic issue across the 21 other Cal State campuses and is not isolated to Cal State LA, and it continues to be a battle for workers’ rights and pay equality.
Castillo said that the unions, including the CSUEU, the California Faculty Association and The Teamsters were those who were advocating and getting the full funding allotted to the CSU for this fiscal year. However, that was guaranteed by the state only with the inclusion of the loan that the CSU would get their full budget amount. This forced the school system to pay the CSUEU the steps that were agreed to in 2023 when this latest CBA was signed, according to Castillo.
The $144 million loan that the CSU accepted from California in October was the total dollar amount that the state could not allot to the CSU system for the 2025-2026 budget. In its initial announcement, the CSU said that it would be used as a one-time payment to faculty and staff, but the details of that plan was vague for both employees of the university and schools around the system, according to a CalMatters report on the loan.
The loan must also be fully paid off back to the state by Jul. 1, 2026.
On the CSU Frequently Asked Questions page about the loan, it said that the CSU was working with each individual campus union about the one-time payments to faculty and staff. However, the CSU would not pay ongoing obligations like the steps for the CSUEU.
“The CSU is intentionally avoiding any new ongoing costs, in keeping with our commitment to long-term fiscal responsibility,” their FAQ on the loan said.
The CSUEU said that they believe that the $144 million could easily fill that gap and ensure that the contractual obligations are filled in a timely manner. It also said that now the CSU had access to the full obligation of funding, the school system is now required to make those payments and abide by the steps that kicked in on Oct. 1 of this year.
By the end of October, the CSU still hadn’t followed through with the implementation of the contract steps, and the CSUEU organized a systemwide event to deliver petitions signed by their members. The petition asked the individual campus administrators to pressure the system to fully implement the full step progressions, including at Cal State LA.
As of publication, there have been no updates and the CSU still has not paid the agreed-to implementations.
The CSUEU is reengaging with the CSU in a process called a re-opener to further discuss the one-time state loan and the salary steps, and determine how the union and school system moves forward. There were no other reopeners in the 2023-2026 CBA that expires on Jun. 30, 2026.
Bentley-Smith confirmed that the CSUEU and CSU are currently discussing the ongoing salary matters for 2025-2026.
Castillo is “disappointed” that the unions jointly worked to fulfill the full funding at the state level and the CSU continues to drag their feet and is “letting us know that our value is worthless to them.”
“All the long hours we put in, all the dedication we put into our students, all the dedication we put into our campus community is basically worthless because they don’t want to pay us,” Castillo said.
