Spartan Daily Vol. 161 No. 32

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NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA NEWS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Volume 161 No. 32 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934

WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY

INFOGRAPHIC BY IRENE ADELINE MILANEZ SOURCE: CALIFORNIA FACULTY ASSOCIATION WEBSITE (CALFAC.ORG)

CFA authorizes potential strike

By Alina Ta

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

The California Faculty Association (CFA authorized and confirmed that they are willing to strike if leaders from the California State University (CSU) system do not meet their demands to increase their pay and to provide better working conditions. The California Faculty Association union members across 23 campuses voted in majority to authorize a strike on Sunday, according to their website. The union has multiple demands including a 12% pay increase for faculty, having the CSU hire more mental health counselors for students, accessible lactation rooms and gender-inclusive restrooms, according to the same source. Ray Buyco, senior history lecturer at San José State and the university’s California Faculty Association chapter president, said the union is asking for a 12% raise in pay for all faculty members

to adjust for inflation and high living costs in the state. “We are not paid largely enough to support ourselves in the Bay Area,” Buyco said. Christopher Cox, sociology senior lecturer and SJSU’s associate vice president for racial and social justice North, said many faculty members are having a difficult time being able to meet their basic needs. “A huge chunk of quality of life has to do with your income and your pay,” Cox said. He said this is more difficult for faculty members who are not tenured, including lecturers, coaches, counselors and librarians. “Oftentimes (they) have to figure out ways to make up for income (by) trying to teach more classes in more places just to be able to make ends meet,” Cox said. “All of that, it definitely affects the quality of life.” Karin Jeffery, sociology and psychology senior lecturer and vice president and

co-chair of the membership and organizing committee for SJSU’s chapter in the California Faculty Association, said the union has voted to authorize a strike, which means they have confirmed that the majority of its union members are willing to go on strike if the union is prepared. Jeffery said the process to decide whether or not to strike starts with the CSU and the California Faculty Association negotiating any disagreements they have on any contracts. She said if the two parties can’t come to any agreements, an independent third party mediator will attempt to moderate the discussion. Jeffery said if both parties are still unable to reach any agreements after a mediator is involved, another independent third-party representative will start the process of fact-finding. She said fact-finding is the process of examining the claims from both parties to see if the facts and arguments

from both groups are accurate. Jeffery said the third-party representative finished going through the process of fact-finding on Sunday. “Nothing will happen before that report is released,” she said. Sabrina Pinnell, political science senior lecturer and the secretary for SJSU’s chapter in the California Faculty Association, said the union is estimating that the report will be finished within the next two to three weeks. Pinnell said once the report is published, there is a 10 day cool-off or blackout period where both sides are not allowed to make public comments, but will continue negotiations behind closed doors. “They can (make a) last ditch attempt to negotiate at that point,” Pinnell said. Jeffery said if that offer doesn’t meet the union’s demands, the California Faculty

Association may decide to strike. She said however, the union could not legally go on strike until a majority vote from union members was confirmed. “All that has happened is (a) vote to authorize a strike has taken place,” Jeffery said. “(This) absolutely does not mean that a strike will happen or that it’s inevitable.” Jeffery said most faculty members should not “jump the gun” and should continue teaching their classes as usual until the union asks them to go on strike. Pinnell said the California Faculty Association appears to be closer to going on strike than before in comparison to previous negotiations. “It feels like they’re talking over us,” Pinnell said. “They’ve already determined what the next 20 years are going to look like. I’d like to be optimistic here, but one of the reasons I’m thinking a strike might actually happen

is because they don’t want to talk about this.” Cox said the CSU still has an opportunity to come back to negotiate and to make a plan to meet their demands, but have not shown interest taking their demands seriously. He also said although faculty members do not want to go on strike, they are also not going to avoid a strike if the CSU does not meet their demands. “What’s not going to happen is we’re not going to just turn around and say, ‘O.K., well, we’ll just go home then because you don’t want to actually engage with us to pay us properly and treat (us) with the respect we deserve,’ ” Cox said. “If that’s the case, and no, we’re not going to avoid a strike.”

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Panel addresses women’s rights issues By Melany Guiterrez STAFF WRITER

San José State University’s Campus Reading Program hosted an online discussion panel about the status, history and resistance efforts on women’s rights and autonomy in Afghanistan and Iran on Wednesday morning. This included discussions on women’s reproductive and bodily rights. The Campus Reading Program was launched by the SJSU Academic Senate in 2005 and is dedicated to fostering a reading-positive culture at

SJSU, according to its website. Every academic year a volunteer group of faculty and staff select a book the campus is encouraged to read and discuss, according to the same website. This year’s book, “Darius The Great Is Not Okay,” by Adib Khorram, is a coming-of-age story detailing the experiences of Darius, according to Adib Khorram’s website. Darius is a half-Persian boy who visits Iran for the first time and encounters Persian customs, traditions and foods, according to the same website. The announcement that

“Darius The Great Is Not Okay” was the Campus Reading Program’s book of the year prompted the program to create a series of panels that share similar topics, including the Global Assault on Women’s Rights. Persis Karim, chair of Iranian Diaspora studies and professor at San Francisco State University, said the discussion panel was inspired by some of the topics the book touches on including discrimination against certain women and other minority groups in Iran. “The panel is about the huge assault on women’s rights laws

globally,” Karim said. “But we are going to be highlighting the particular egregious conditions of women in Iran and Afghanistan.” Karim said the panel was also inspired by the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests in Iran. The Women, Life, Freedom movement and protests started in Sept. 2022 after a young woman, Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested by the Iranian morality police, according to a Sept. 20, 2022 New York Times article. Amini was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s

hijab law, according to the same article. Her death catalyzed the eruption of the movement when young women started protesting in many cities and college campuses in Tehran, the capital of Iran, according to the same source. Halima Kazem-Stojanovic, journalist, historian, project manager at Stanford University and former justice studies lecturer at SJSU, said most people have little understanding and knowledge about women’s roles in Iranian and Afghanistan history. “Afghan women have

shaped the politics of their time and interacted with Afghan regimes and foreign empires,” Kazem-Stojanovic said. She said there have been many distinct emancipation periods and feminist movements about appropriate modern femininity, from 1919 to 2021 in Afghanistan. Kazem-Stojanovic said studying Afghanistan history reveals that women used tactics to include themselves in negotiations, important affairs were played out on gendered ground. WOMEN’S RIGHTS | Page 2


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