CSU Strike Echoes 1960s Campus Labor Battles: What’s Different Now?

Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and mechanics at California State University walked off the job in February, testing whether decades-old labor tactics could still work in a university system that’s fundamentally different from the one where campus workers first organized in the 1960s.

The four-day strike shut down maintenance operations across all 23 CSU campuses—approximately 1,100 skilled trades workers establishing picket lines from San Diego to Humboldt County. At Cal Poly’s Slack Street entrance, union members held the line from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., part of one of the most coordinated displays of skilled trades worker power in California public higher education in decades.

What they were fighting for seemed straightforward: a promised five percent annual salary increase negotiated in 2024 that CSU administration refused to implement in July 2025, offering instead a one-time three percent bonus. The dispute revealed something deeper about how labor power works—or doesn’t—in an era of permanent austerity in public higher education.

The Disputed Contract

The strike grew out of months of contract negotiations that stretched back to 2022, when Governor Gavin Newsom and CSU negotiators agreed to a funding compact outlining five percent annual base funding increases over five years.

During 2023-2024 collective bargaining, CSU and Teamsters Local 2010 agreed to salary increases only if the state gave them at least $227 million in new permanent funding from the state’s general budget. That “if” clause became the center of everything that followed.

When the 2025-26 state budget materialized, California lawmakers enacted a three percent reduction to CSU’s base funding—approximately $144 million—paired with a zero-interest loan that would need to be repaid by July 1, 2026. CSU administration saw an opening: because the loan was structured as temporary rather than permanent new funding, they argued the “if” clause in workers’ contracts hadn’t been satisfied.

Union representatives saw it differently. The state had provided full funding, they argued, and CSU’s refusal to implement the July 2025 raises constituted a breach of contract.

Paul Fahy, a building services engineer with three decades at Cal Poly, recognized the pattern immediately. “I’m striking so that we can get what the CSU agreed to, which is our steps,” he told campus media. “The CSU has been doing this since I started 30 years ago. I found a letter from 1999 saying ‘this is your one time bonus’ instead of a raise.”

One-time bonuses don’t compound. They don’t increase your pension calculation. They don’t become part of your base salary for future raises. Over 30 years, the difference between regular raises and one-time bonuses amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime compensation.

Legal Classification and Protections

The union filed multiple complaints that CSU was breaking labor law with the California Public Employment Relations Board. A fact-finding hearing convened on February 11 as part of the required process to resolve the deadlock under a California law that governs how public universities negotiate with unions.

When no agreement emerged, Teamsters Local 2010 moved forward with its strike authorization vote. The result: 94 percent approval, demonstrating the depth of member commitment.

The strike was organized with precision. At Fresno State, pickets positioned themselves at the Maple Avenue entrance. Similar actions unfolded simultaneously across the system. Vice President Terrance Harris notified Cal Poly students that the university would remain open and that “classes, instruction, and student services will continue,” though he acknowledged that some facilities services could experience delays.

Systems potentially affected included elevators, lighting, electrical infrastructure, heating and cooling, plumbing, and restroom maintenance.

The law classified the strike as protesting illegal behavior by CSU rather than an economic strike. Under California law, workers who participate in a lawful strike over unfair labor practices can’t be discharged or disciplined for strike participation, and they retain the right to return to their positions when the strike concludes.

Coalition Support

Teamsters Local 2010 represents approximately 1,100 CSU skilled trades workers scattered across 22 campuses. The California Labor Federation officially approved the strike. Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42 provided organizational support across Northern and Southern California. The most significant support came from other campus unions.

The California Faculty Association, representing approximately 23,000 faculty members across CSU campuses, issued an explicit call for its members to honor picket lines and, if possible, refrain from crossing them. “An injury to one is an injury to all,” the CFA stated. “Teamsters have always had our backs during our job actions and have shown up in droves to ensure we get the respect we deserve as faculty. It’s time for us to demonstrate our solidarity.”

By securing solidarity pledges from faculty unions—whose members occupy positions of higher social prestige and whose strikes would shut down classes—Teamsters Local 2010 created the possibility that faculty refusal to cross picket lines could amplify the strike’s impact beyond what skilled trades workers alone could achieve.

California state legislators introduced Assembly Bill 1831, which would cap CSU executive compensation at 125 percent of the California governor’s salary (currently $307,411 annually) and prohibit executive raises in any year when student tuition increased.

1960s Context: Expansion vs. Austerity

The 1960s saw a surge of campus labor organizing that intersected with Civil Rights Movement activism, student radicalism, and the expansion of public higher education investment. At UC Berkeley, maintenance workers organized with AFSCME in the late 1960s, demanding wage increases and challenging workplace discrimination that disproportionately affected Black and Latino workers.

Food service workers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill struck in 1969 under the leadership of Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks, Black workers fighting below-minimum wages, compulsory unpaid time on campus, and discriminatory supervision.

These actions occurred in a context of genuine growth. The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education established a three-tier system—UC for doctoral and research training, CSU for undergraduate and master’s education, community colleges for access—with an explicit commitment that anyone from anywhere in California could, if they worked hard enough, get a bachelor’s degree from one of the best universities in the country, almost free of charge.

That era saw significant investment in facilities, expansion of campuses, and corresponding growth in employment opportunities for skilled trades workers. The expansion itself created a large, concentrated workforce whose labor was needed for campus functioning, facilitating unionization and collective action.

By contrast, the decades between the 1960s and 2026 saw steady decline in public funding for higher education. California’s Proposition 13, passed in 1978, capped property tax revenues and severely limited the state’s ability to fund public services, including universities.

As state funding declined relative to campus budgets, universities increasingly turned to tuition revenue and other income sources. Where California’s public universities charged minimal tuition in the 1960s, by 2026 students at CSU campuses paid tuition ranging from approximately $3,900 to $4,700 annually, with additional mandatory fees that raised total charges substantially higher.

The CSU Board of Trustees had approved a multiyear tuition policy increasing charges by six percent annually from 2024-25 through 2028-29, ensuring that even the nominal cost of attending CSU would rise by approximately thirty percent over five years.

This money shift directly affected how CSU organized its workforce. Where earlier era campus expansions created permanent full-time positions for skilled trades workers and maintenance staff, later decades saw increasing reliance on temporary contractors, outsourced services, and reduced permanent staffing.

Phil Bradley, chief union steward and locksmith at Cal Poly Humboldt, provided insight into these conditions. Bradley noted that the 2024 contract represented the first time in three decades that maintenance workers had received regular raises, breaking a pattern in which skilled trades workers’ compensation had stagnated even as the cost of living escalated.

“There was no real career path progression for anyone,” Bradley explained. “It did kind of encourage job hopping.”

He articulated the broader contradiction: “The CSU loves to brag about what a great economic engine our campuses are for our communities. They love to talk about how much economic mobility a CSU education gives our graduates, but they don’t seem willing to invest at all in the people that make all that possible.”

Executive Compensation Disparity

Union communications repeatedly highlighted what became the strike’s most politically potent argument: CSU had approved five to twenty percent raises for campus presidents in November 2025 and additional executive compensation increases for vice chancellors in January 2026, even as they denied promised raises to skilled trades workers.

One union statement captured the contradiction: “CSU was the only public employer in California to give no raises to any workers in 2025—except for huge increases to overpaid executives—despite continuing increases in our cost of living.”

This argument positioned the dispute as one about values and priorities rather than mere economics. It highlighted the hypocrisy of resource scarcity claims. And it connected the skilled trades workers’ grievances to broader public sector labor movement concerns about inequality and executive compensation.

While CSU claimed it couldn’t afford promised worker raises, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo President Jeffrey Armstrong received a $101,867 (20 percent) increase in compensation, bringing his total compensation to $611,203 including housing and car allowances.

When workers earning $60,000 annually are told there’s no money for their promised five percent raise while executives making ten times that receive twenty percent increases, the claim about budget constraints loses credibility.

Strike Outcomes and Impact

The immediate strike lasted four days, from February 17 through February 20, with picket lines established on nearly all CSU campuses. By the strike’s conclusion, union negotiators and CSU administration hadn’t reached a settlement, leaving the fundamental dispute unresolved even as workers returned to their positions.

The operational disruption proved more limited than might have been anticipated. CSU administrators had informed students and faculty that campus operations would continue, with instruction and student services maintaining normal schedules. While facilities services experienced challenges, the disruption didn’t reach the level of functional campus shutdown.

The coordinated action across all 23 campuses generated significant media coverage in California educational journalism, regional newspapers, and broader outlets. The story of CSU’s hypocrisy—approving executive raises while denying worker raises during a budget crisis—received substantial attention, especially when combined with the introduction of Assembly Bill 1831 to cap executive compensation.

The California Faculty Association’s explicit call for members to honor picket lines represented meaningful solidaristic action that could, if it happened across campuses, increase pressure on CSU administration.

Regular union members who had authorized strike action with 94 percent approval showed that support through action, strengthening union membership cohesion and demonstrating that the organization could mobilize its base.

Strategies for Future Actions

Sustained Monthly Mobilization

Rather than treating the February strike as the culmination of worker organizing, regular ongoing actions often work better than one big effort. The 1968-1969 San Francisco State College strike lasted five months and became the longest student-led strike in American higher education history, demonstrating that movements maintaining pressure over long periods can eventually force institutional change.

The Delano grape strike of 1965-1970 succeeded not through a single decisive action but through sustained campaign work including both strikes and consumer boycotts coordinated over multiple years.

For the CSU movement, a model of monthly mobilization—perhaps concentrating actions on the 17th of each month to commemorate the initial strike date—could maintain visibility and pressure without requiring workers to sustain the full cost of a complete work stoppage. Actions could gradually increase from single-day to three-day actions as momentum builds.

Each month could target specific policy demands: one month emphasizing denied raises, the next addressing the executive compensation contradiction, a third focusing on the state budget and funding compact.

Direct Coalition Action with Faculty

The current strike achieved significant symbolic solidarity from faculty unions but stopped short of faculty refusing to teach, which would create operational disruption far exceeding maintenance worker absence.

The CFA had said that while faculty couldn’t legally strike in sympathy under California law, they could refuse to cross picket lines and could engage in various forms of solidarity action.

A coordinated strategy in which Teamsters Local 2010 explicitly requested that CFA members honor picket lines by not conducting classes could transform the strike’s impact. The 1968-1969 San Francisco State strike achieved its most significant impacts when faculty supported student strike actions by not holding classes, forcing the closure of classrooms and creating pressure on university administration that custodial strikes alone couldn’t generate.

If skilled trades workers’ picket lines were honored by faculty, with instruction halted across CSU campuses, the operational disruption would escalate dramatically.

Legislative Leverage

The state legislature appropriates CSU funding and has power over the Board of Trustees, yet rarely uses this leverage around labor matters. A coordinated campaign by labor allies in the state legislature could propose legislation making some of CSU’s funding depend on CSU proving it’s following specific labor relations standards: honoring negotiated contracts, providing regular raises indexed to cost-of-living increases, limiting executive compensation, and maintaining transparent budget processes.

Assembly Bill 1831 represents a step in this direction by attempting to cap executive compensation. The power of this approach lies in making labor dispute outcomes a matter of fiscal policy rather than purely labor relations.

If CSU administration refuses worker demands, they simultaneously risk losing state appropriations conditional on labor compliance.

Public Campaign Linking Worker Treatment to Student Affordability

While the strike emphasized worker grievances, a complementary campaign could highlight the contradiction between CSU’s commitment to student affordability and its denial of worker compensation increases while approving executive raises and maintaining institutional reserves.

Students carry substantial debt burdens because CSU has shifted costs from the state to individuals. Simultaneously, CSU administrators claim lack of resources for worker compensation while approving executive compensation increases representing the most generous raises in the university’s recent history.

A public campaign explicitly connecting these contradictions could mobilize student support for worker demands. The campaign could emphasize that CSU’s treatment of workers reflects broader institutional priorities that also disadvantage students: when the university chooses executive compensation over worker wages, it values administrators over education quality or student affordability.

Future Prospects

As the February strike concluded without immediate settlement, Teamsters Local 2010 and CSU administration continued negotiating, with the basic dispute unresolved.

Several potential pathways for settlement appeared possible. CSU might negotiate a compromise in which a percentage of the promised five percent raise was implemented in fiscal year 2025-26, with the remainder deferred to future years. Alternatively, CSU might agree to implement the full five percent raise effective July 2026, when CSU anticipated improved state funding prospects.

Governor Newsom’s January 2026 budget proposal for 2026-27 included $5.6 billion in state General Fund support for CSU, compared to $5.4 billion in 2025-26, plus additional commitment to provide the $252.3 million one-time deferral payment promised under the multiyear compact.

If the legislature approved the Governor’s proposal, CSU would have more resources available for salary increases, making it harder for them to claim they can’t afford raises. This timing suggested that worker pressure, if maintained through subsequent months, could potentially achieve settlement as the state budget process developed.

The introduction of Assembly Bill 1831 to cap CSU executive compensation represented explicit legislative concern about the disconnect between executive compensation growth and worker compensation constraints. If the bill passed, it would legally restrict CSU’s ability to further increase executive compensation.

Kaiser Permanente’s ongoing strike of 31,000 workers continued through the first months of 2026, maintaining visibility of major labor actions in California. UAW organizing continued in the auto industry and academia.

Unless subsequent actions sustained pressure, CSU might wait for strikers to give up over time. CSU administration had withstood four days of strike action without capitulating, suggesting confidence that they could maintain their position.

The absence of immediate operational shutdown meant that CSU could weather the strike without experiencing the kind of complete breakdown that had sometimes forced quick settlements in other sectors. Workers themselves faced financial pressure from lost wages, though the union provided some strike pay.

Sustaining membership commitment to future actions after an initial strike that didn’t achieve immediate demands would require sophisticated union leadership and continued mobilization efforts.

The February 2026 CSU skilled trades workers’ strike represented a system-wide coordinated strike involving 1,100 workers across 23 campuses, authorized by overwhelming membership vote, conducted under legal protections unavailable to earlier generations of campus workers, and supported by coalition commitments from other unions representing faculty and administrative workers.

The 2026 strike differed from 1960s campus strikes because the economic situation was reversed. Where 1960s campus labor organizing occurred amid expansion of public higher education investment and growing public sector union power, 2026 skilled trades workers struck against the backdrop of decades of state disinvestment, eroded union membership in the private sector, and government’s acceptance of “we can’t afford it” arguments.

Workers possessed legal protections unavailable to earlier generations, through California’s collective bargaining laws and protections for strikes over unfair practices, yet faced a CSU administration confident in claims about budget constraint that would have seemed unthinkable in an era of expanding public investment.

The strike hadn’t, as of its February 20 conclusion, achieved workers’ stated goal of securing five percent permanent salary increases. It had made it more politically expensive for CSU to keep refusing to implement promised raises. It had demonstrated worker power and solidarity across geographic distance and trade jurisdictions, trained a new generation of unionists in labor action, generated media attention highlighting the contradiction between executive compensation growth and worker compensation freezes, and sparked legislative response.

Whether the strike would ultimately prove decisive in securing worker demands depended on subsequent developments—the state budget’s fate, CSU administration’s willingness to negotiate, the state labor board’s decision on unfair labor practice charges, and the union’s capacity to sustain membership commitment to future actions.

The pattern Paul Fahy had documented in his 1999 letter—CSU offering one-time bonuses instead of permanent raises—had continued for another quarter-century, creating accumulated losses of lifetime compensation for workers whose labor was needed for campus operations.

The February 2026 strike represented workers’ judgment that further negotiation within the normal negotiation process was unlikely to break that pattern, and that direct labor action—visible, coordinated, disruptive—was the remaining available strategy to compel change. Whether that decision would succeed depended on the evolving political and economic context and on the union’s capacity to continue mobilization beyond the initial four days of action.

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