Do Higher Education Strikes Work? Examining the Track Record

Approximately 1,100 skilled trades workers walked off the job across all 23 California State University campuses in mid-February 2026. They weren’t striking for better benefits or higher wages than their contracts promised. They were striking because CSU had refused to pay them what had already been agreed to in writing.

The four-day strike—a strike protesting illegal employer behavior—ran February 17-20. It represented a test case for whether public sector unions can force institutions to follow contracts they signed, even when tight budgets give them excuses.

CSU wasn’t breaking new ground—the university system had been substituting one-time bonuses for permanent raises for more than two and a half decades. A locksmith at Cal Poly Humboldt discovered a letter from 1999 stating “this is your one-time bonus instead of a raise,” documenting that this tactic stretched back at least 27 years. The 2026 strike forced a reckoning with that history.

The Contract Dispute That Sparked the Strike

The immediate cause was a 2022 funding agreement between Governor Gavin Newsom and CSU leadership that promised 5 percent annual increases to the university system over five years. During 2023-24 negotiations, Teamsters Local 2010 negotiated contracts that tied salary increases to CSU receiving at least $227 million in new permanent funding from the state’s general budget.

The 2025-26 budget didn’t deliver. Instead, the state’s legislature enacted a 3 percent reduction to CSU’s base budget—approximately $144 million—while offering a zero-interest loan of the same amount to offset the cut temporarily, with repayment required by July 1, 2026.

CSU maintained that the contract required “new, unallocated, ongoing funding,” and that a temporary loan didn’t meet this definition. The university therefore declined to implement the promised July 2025 salary increases. Instead, CSU offered employees a one-time payment equal to 3 percent of their annual base salary.

Teamsters Local 2010 rejected this. Union leaders argued CSU was using “a legal loophole to withhold our raises” when the state had provided sufficient resources through the loan mechanism. The union filed formal complaints with the state’s labor board (the Public Employment Relations Board), claiming CSU wasn’t negotiating honestly.

The financial stakes were substantial. A worker earning $60,000 annually would receive $1,800 as a one-time payment versus $3,000 annually from a 5 percent increase—the raise percentage specified in the funding compact that the contracts were tied to. Over ten years, the permanent increase generates $30,000 in additional earnings, while the bonus provides only $1,800. The differential becomes even more significant for pension calculations, since the state’s public pension system calculates benefits based on final average salary.

What the Strike Looked Like

The action involved electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, carpenters, locksmiths, and building services engineers—employees needed to maintain campus infrastructure. At Sacramento State, Teamsters picketed the J Street entrance from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM throughout the period. At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, people established picket lines starting at 6:00 AM near the Slack Street campus entrance.

Campus heating systems were shut down for safety purposes due to absent boiler room operators. Plumbing emergencies went unaddressed. Electrical repairs were deferred.

The action was classified as a strike against illegal employer behavior—a specific legal category under law protecting public university employees—which meant participants retained legal protections and had the right to return to their positions after it ended. This classification provided security to participants, though it also meant people wouldn’t receive strike pay—a significant consideration for employees living paycheck to paycheck in the state’s high-cost-of-living economy.

The authorization vote in December 2025 had achieved 94 percent support, indicating strong unity among members. That level of unity proved critical for maintaining disciplined picket lines across 23 campuses spread across the state.

The Coalition That Made It Possible

The Faculty Association, representing 29,000 faculty members across the CSU system, issued an explicit call for faculty to support the Teamsters by showing up on picket lines, wearing CFA red, and honoring picket lines by not crossing them.

CFA’s statement made the reciprocal nature clear: “Teamsters have always had our backs during our job actions.” CFA materials clarified that faculty could legally honor picket lines without being disciplined, though management retained the right to dock pay for days not worked.

Beyond faculty, the action received official support from both the state Labor Federation and Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42, representing Northern and Southern regions respectively. At individual campuses, other unions pledged solidarity, including academic professionals, autoworkers, and police unions—a mix of unions that showed widespread support across occupational categories.

Phillip Bradley, chief union steward and locksmith at Cal Poly Humboldt, addressed the Arcata City Council before the action to warn residents about disruptions while emphasizing that “this is not an action we want to take.” He clarified that it was “not targeted at anyone on our campus or in our community” but rather at “the chancellor’s office and the CSU Board of Trustees.”

The Immediate Outcome

The available evidence doesn’t definitively document the final settlement, creating uncertainty about whether people secured the full 5 percent salary increases. CSU and Teamsters held a fact-finding hearing on February 11, with a state-appointed fact-finder conducting hearings, reviewing data, and hearing arguments from both sides.

The fact-finding process, structured under law that governs how public employees negotiate, was designed to apply public pressure and create transparency before the employer could unilaterally impose its final offer.

CSU couldn’t ignore the action. It forced formal dispute resolution mechanisms into play, creating structured pathways toward settlement that wouldn’t have existed without the work stoppage.

Media Coverage and Public Framing

The action got public attention across the state. Coverage appeared in CalMatters, LAist, Lost Coast Outpost, GV Wire, and San Luis Obispo area media outlets. Coverage across so many different areas—from Humboldt County to Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo—suggests it reached public consciousness statewide.

News coverage was balanced in ways that benefited employees. Outlets reported the union’s strongest language directly: CSU’s actions represented “dishonestly trying to use a legal loophole” and constituted a “display of greed, arrogance and hypocrisy.” Simultaneously, coverage included CSU’s counter-position that the contract explicitly permitted reopening if specified funding conditions weren’t met.

The contrast between executive compensation and employee compensation proved visible. Multiple outlets reported that CSU had approved salary increases of 5 to 20 percent for campus presidents while offering trades employees a 3 percent one-time bonus. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo President Jeffrey Armstrong received a 20 percent base increase totaling $101,867, bringing his total compensation to $611,203 in base pay—not including CSU-provided housing, a $12,000 annual car allowance, or eligibility for 15 percent at-risk performance pay.

A single president’s $101,867 salary increase exceeded the total annual compensation difference that a trades employee might seek. This contrast created a powerful fairness argument.

Political Response and Legislative Action

The action prompted legislative action. Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens, working with the Faculty Association, introduced Assembly Bill 1831 specifically in response to the executive compensation increases.

The bill would cap CSU administrator pay at 125 percent of the governor’s salary (approximately $307,411), with the governor earning $245,929 annually. The bill would have required the CSU Board of Trustees to repeal previously approved executive raises on or before July 1, 2027, and would prevent administrators from receiving raises in any fiscal year when student tuition increases.

Historical Context: Recent Teacher Strike Outcomes

Research on teacher strikes between 2007 and 2023 found that strikes were effective tools: teacher pay rose on average 8 percent by the fifth year after a strike, class sizes declined, and per-student spending increased. This research showed that 89 percent of strikes occurred at least partly for wages, and more than 50 percent included demands for improved conditions.

Despite the disruptions strikes caused—involving roughly 11.5 million students and canceling 3,403 days of school over 16 years—researchers found “no evidence of sizable positive or negative effects of strikes on students.”

However, strike effectiveness has declined significantly over time. Research comparing pre-1980s and post-1980s strikes found that strikers enjoyed 5-10 percent wage gains prior to the 1980s, but null wage changes thereafter. This happened because employers became more willing to use replacement employees and hardline tactics that diminished leverage.

The UC System Precedent

The UC system’s experience with academic worker strikes provided more direct precedent. The 2022 Fair UC Now strike by over 48,000 academic employees—representing the largest action in U.S. higher education history—achieved significant gains including major pay increases across the three campuses, harassment protections, paid childbirth leave, health insurance coverage for gender affirming care, and a $1,000 signing bonus.

The UC success suggested that coordinated, multi-campus labor action in the state’s public universities could move institutional leadership. However, the UC action involved significantly different employees (graduate students and researchers) and different workplace situations than the Teamsters case.

The Return of Salary Steps

The 2026 action represented not an initial labor defeat but rather a defense of recently won gains. In January 2024, over two years before the 2026 action, Teamsters Local 2010 had won a “historic tentative agreement” that included “the return of salary steps after a 28-year absence.”

This 2024 victory meant trades employees had achieved a major structural change in their compensation system—shifting from performance-based raises that management could hold back at their discretion to automatic salary progression based on years of service.

Salary steps historically provided career path progression that prevented experienced employees from earning less than newer hires. Before steps were restored, “there was no real career path progression for anyone,” and the system “did kind of encourage job hopping,” as Phil Bradley noted.

CSU’s withdrawal of the promised increase felt like a serious betrayal—not only of the contract language but of a specific victory that people had fought to achieve.

Strategic Options for Future Actions

Building Support Between Students and Workers

One challenge was maintaining campus operations. CSU’s ability to keep classes running and communicate directly to students that “classes, instruction, and student services will continue” limited the power to disrupt.

Future actions might strategically highlight specific maintenance failures that directly impact student services. For example, documenting cases where broken heating systems affect student housing comfort, where plumbing failures disrupt residence halls, or where electrical outages interrupt academic work, and ensuring students understand that these are consequences of administration’s compensation choices.

The 2022 UC Fair UC Now action faced similar challenges with student inconvenience potentially generating backlash. However, movements where employees have directly asked students to accept inconvenience as part of justice—framing it as a way to show solidarity rather than victimization—have been more successful than movements that try to minimize visible disruption.

Public Accounting of Living Costs

CSU’s administrative response repeatedly invoked budget constraints as justification for denying raises. A detailed breakdown showing what trades employees earn, what their expenses are in the state’s high-cost-of-living economy, and what percentage of their income goes to housing, childcare, food, and transportation could shift public framing from abstract budget debates to financial struggles.

Publishing this as a report that circulates to legislators, trustees, media, and the public—with visual comparisons showing that a single vice chancellor’s raise equals months of employee salary, or that a campus president’s car allowance exceeds an employee’s entire monthly housing costs—could make the budget argument human.

Using Elections and Political Pressure

State legislators control funding mechanisms for CSU and regulate labor law. If CSU employees could visibly mobilize voters in specific legislative districts—particularly those represented by legislators on education or budget committees—election pressure could lead to legislative action.

Assembly Bill 1831, capping executive compensation, suggested that some legislators were responsive to this framing. Sustained electoral pressure could extend this momentum. Organizing CSU employees and sympathetic students and faculty to become visible political actors—surveying all CSU-region legislators about their positions on the contract dispute and executive compensation capping, and creating ways to hold politicians accountable where people commit to supporting candidates who publicly support compensation—could turn workplace struggles into voting power.

Building Community Alliances

The most successful sustained labor campaigns have combined labor organizing with broader community alliances. CSU trades employees, earning $50,000-70,000 annually in the state, are themselves part of the low-income population. They compete with other people for scarce resources and face the same housing, childcare, and healthcare systems.

Creating official partnerships between Teamsters Local 2010 and broader community organizations—food banks, tenant unions, legal services nonprofits—that serve low-income residents could create group pressure that reaches policymakers through multiple constituencies. Setting up these partnerships so these organizations have the right to publicly comment on CSU budget decisions because CSU pay affects their constituents’ broader economic security could reframe compensation demands as part of a broader fight for economic fairness.

What Comes Next

The resolution hadn’t been resolved as of early February. The February 11 fact-finding hearing provided the framework for resolution, with the state-appointed fact-finder expected to issue recommendations within 30 days. If recommendations favor the union, CSU might be compelled by public and political pressure to accept them. If recommendations favor management, the union would face a choice about whether to continue action or accept settlement on less favorable terms.

The political energy from the action will likely translate into legislative action beyond AB 1831. Additional bills addressing CSU labor relations, budget practices, or compensation policies could emerge from this legislative session. Whether such bills pass depends on legislative priorities and CSU lobbying effectiveness, but the political conversation has shifted toward questioning CSU administrative practices in ways that wouldn’t have occurred without the visible action.

The action has established precedent for future labor actions at CSU. Teamsters have now demonstrated twice in two years—in 2024 and again in 2026—that organized pressure can move CSU toward agreements. This success, even if partial, creates expectation that future contract disputes will similarly be resolved through threats or actions rather than voluntary management concessions.

For the broader CSU labor movement, including the Faculty Association, the Teamsters’ proven ability to organize strengthens the union coalition and suggests that coordinated labor action remains viable in the state’s public universities.

The action also highlights the fragility of budget-dependent compensation promises. The 2022 funding agreement explicitly tied raises to budget outcomes, which means that budget crises automatically become labor crises. As the state faces ongoing fiscal challenges and uncertain revenues, this mechanism will likely trigger similar disputes in coming years.

The broader narrative of public universities’ priorities has shifted. Before the Teamsters action, the conversation about CSU typically focused on tuition increases, enrollment pressures, and academic programs. The February 2026 action introduced into this conversation questions about what CSU values—specifically, whether the system values the trades employees who maintain physical infrastructure as much as it values administrative leadership.

The contrast between executive raises and employee bonus offers creates a powerful fairness argument that will likely persist in subsequent political debates about CSU.

This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.