The CSU Board of Trustees is responsible for the oversight of the California State University. The Board adopts rules, regulations, and policies governing the CSU. They also have authority over curricular development, use of property, development of facilities, and fiscal and human resources management.
Board of Trustees Committees
Collective Bargaining Committee
The Board has a number of Standing Committees, and the one that directly impacts APC is the Collective Bargaining Committee. They oversee the CSU side and CSU Bargaining Team.
They’re also tasked with Bargaining for the APC contract and give the final approval of the contract that we negotiate. That includes every article that’s in the CBA which includes salary and benefits. Anything that we come to terms with or agree to, it’s the Collective Bargaining Committee that approves the final contract.
Governmental Regulations Committee
The other committees that can directly impact APC, is the Standing Committee of Governmental Regulations. They oversee all the different bills that are passed or proposed in the state legislature, whether that be the assembly or the state senate. If there is a bill that is going impact the CSU, they will look it over and decide whether or not to support the bill.
Bills and Initiatives
Recently the bills that have been proposed in the legislator was Assembly Bill 1231 and then there was an Assembly Bill 369, that would propose to bring back the salary step ranges back to the CSU employees. However, the CSU has not supported that. They’re opposed to bringing back salary steps.
Any similar bills that could have any impact on Collective Bargaining or any impact that would have to do with the CSU, the CSU decides if they will oppose it. This is just one example, but there are several other Bills that are floating around in any given year that the CSU would decide to support or oppose.
Any educational policy can indirectly affect the work of the APC members because these policies deal with the students. In many ways, they can affect how the students are supported, from registration to graduation. If and when those types of polices are passed it does indirectly impact the employee’s work.
One good example is the GI 2025 initiative. This is the graduation initiative of 2025, which is trying to increase the graduation rates of CSU students in the year of 2025. Student services professionals are directly impacted by that because they are the ones that have to make that happen. How are we going to increase graduations rates and support and advise students? There’s money that’s being put into hiring more advisers and more faculty. Unit 4 is the advisement area. We need more advisers in the departments and hiring those that deal with graduation or getting students to graduation.
About the Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is a 25-member board. They are appointed by the Governor and serve an eight-year term. It can continue beyond that, but most trustees serve the eight-year term. It’s a long-term commitment to be on the Board of Trustees.
There’s always a Meeting Agenda and there are several committees that the board of trustees can be members of.
Board Support
There are members that are in support of unions. Romey Sabalius has always been outspoken in supporting staff and faculty and gives us recognition on what we do. There are others who have publicly stated that they will speak positively for the union, and some of them actually come out to the audience. Romey always comes out and says hello, and he’s very genuine when he does. There are others who have stood by the side of the unions as well.
The Voice of Unit 4
Unit 4 members can be heard on any agenda item if they want to speak to the Board of Trustees. A campaign has been sent out to APC members to recommend how to speak to the Board in the public comment section of the meetings. It could be public comments for any particular committee, and especially for the Collective Bargaining Committees when they are meeting. We do encourage the members and ask them to speak to the committee directly, or they can go the public comments and make their voce heard there. Unfortunately, since there’s so many people that want to speak, the Board has enacted a time-limit that a person can speak. Right now it’s at one minute which is hard to do, it used to be three minutes, but it some people were just going over that, so they cracked down on hearing from the public. It does make the meeting longer, but this allows a lot of people, especially students, to speak to the Board of Trustees about particular issues at the meeting.
If someone is unable to attend the meeting in person or virtually, they can also send an email. There is a notice that goes out to everyone, and they can email the Board of Trustees secretary and it’s disseminated to all the Board. It’s a good way of controlling the flow so that if you want to voice your opinion on something that the Board is considering, there’s a method on how to do that. They publish that before every meeting on how you can address the Board either by speaking or by email.
And the Agenda items do change from meeting to meeting, but it’s always published a week before the meeting.
The meetings are also attended by different constituents, representatives, student representatives, staff representatives, and facutly representatives that have an opportunity to speak and present their information.
If you would like more information on how your voice can be heard at the next Board of Trustee meeting, contact your local Steward today.