Organizing Goals

Here, our CFA-LA FORGE Justice leadership team outlines several organizing goals that we intend to focus on during our term in office. These goals revolve around the broad themes of democracy, justice, abolition, and solidarity. Let us know which of these goals you support and are willing to fight for. 

We Will Forge a More Democratic and Member-Driven Union by:

  • Enforcing our contract and organizing for a stronger contract in 2020.
  • Defending public higher education and the CA Master Plan.
  • Convening General Membership Meetings (GMM) at least twice a semester to ensure the general membership is the ultimate decision-making body of the chapter.
  • Empowering rank-and-file members and chapter activists through hands-on organizer trainings and workshops; i.e. member organizing, enforcing the contract, etc.
  • Coordinating Building/College-level membership meetings to further decentralize chapter decision-making.
  • Ensuring transparency & accountability of chapter activities, such as E-Board decisions, elections, finances, etc.
  • Developing Member Action Teams:
    • Organize direct action committees to make demands on management, 
  • Expanding the Membership & Organizing Committee and the Department Rep system.
  • Supporting the Race/Ethnicity, Women’s, and LGBTQ Caucuses to encourage CFA-LA to become a more diverse and inclusive union.

We Will Fight for Racial, Gender, and Economic Justice by:

Racial Justice

  • Fully implementing CFA’s Anti-Racism and Social Justice Transformation principles.
  • Holding anti-racism trainings which analyze where structural racism exists on our campus.  
  • Growing the CRSJ’s race & ethnicity caucuses to empower rank-and-file members to hold the university accountable on issues of racial justice.
  • Encouraging faculty of color to apply for Cultural Taxation assigned time (aka exceptional service credit).
  • Supporting the fight against impaction and demanding Cal State LA improve enrollment numbers for Black and Indigenous students.
  • Advocating for police accountability on campus.

Gender & Sexuality Justice

  • Working with campus groups (Women’s Caucus, WGSS, and CCC) to disrupt sexism, sexual harassment, homophobia, and transphobia on campus by holding bystander intervention, Trans 101, and other transformative justice trainings.
  • Growing the Women’s and LGBTQ+ Caucuses to empower rank-and-file members to hold the university accountable on issues of gender and sexuality justice.
  • Fighting for on campus subsidized child care.
  • Organizing a campaign to address gender pay disparities.
  • Demanding Cal State LA install more Gender Neutral bathrooms around campus.

Economic Justice

  • Fighting for improved workload & working conditions.
  • Holding workshops that explore neoliberalism’s impact on public higher education.
  • Opposing the corporatization of campus:
    • Develop campus cooperatives.
  • Challenging the university’s role in the gentrification of surrounding neighborhoods.
  • Calling for transparent and participatory campus budgeting.
  • Creating Mutual Aid/Solidarity Networks:
    • Guerrilla food pantry in CFA office accessible to faculty, staff, and students.
  • Demanding Free Public Higher Education.

We Will Organize to Abolish the Two-Tier Faculty System by:

Campus-Level Lecturer Campaigns

  • Establishing a chapter Lecturers’ Council.
  • Winning S-Factor for Lecturers.
  • Advocating for the conversion of Lecturers to the tenure-line in order to increase tenure density:
    • Converted Lecturers should be able to transfer some research and service credit to TT.
  • Organizing for $7000 minimum per course (CUNY Lecturers are currently fighting for this).
  • Ensuring Lecturers have access to office space with no more than 3 or 4 people per office.
  • Working for Lecturer rights to shared governance with fair compensation or assigned time.

Bargaining-Level Lecturer Campaigns

  • Developing a teaching tenure line.
  • Earning three-year contracts after the 3rd year of teaching.
  • Advocating for progressive raises ($ rather than % increases) to lessen inequality between T/TT and Lecturer faculty.
  • Demanding benefits for all Lecturers teaching 1 course or more.
  • Fighting for pay parity to ensure Lecturers receive equal pay for equal work.

We Will Build a Solidarity Campus by:

  • Solidarity Campus Organizing Training
  • Helping draft points of unity between faculty, staff, and students on campus.
  • Establishing a rapid response team to support members of the campus community.
  • Convening popular assemblies to collectively discuss and decide upon important issues impacting the Cal State LA community.
  • Creating Student/SQE-CFA Collaborative projects:
    • Faculty-Student organizing pods
    • Joint organizing trainings
  • Developing a Campus Education Workers’ Spokes-council:
    • Schedule regular solidarity meetings with leaders and rank-and-file activists of other campus unions.
    • Pool resources and work on participatory budgeting campaign.