Across CSU campuses, skilled trades workers strike over denied raises
One striking Teamster thought the rainy weather might be on their side Tuesday as they rallied outside Sacramento State over raises that the university withheld last year after facing budget cuts last year.
Any plumbing issues that arise from the deluge of rain won’t be fixed, “because we’re not there to service them,” said Matt Mason, Teamsters Local 2010’s chief steward on Sacramento State’s campus.
Donning fluorescent rain gear and ponchos, a handful of Sacramento State employees braved Tuesday morning’s inclement weather to send a message to university leaders that the CSU needed to uphold the raises that they expected to receive last year. The union approved a strike authorization vote in December by over 90%.
California State University plumbers, electricians and other skilled trade workers launched a planned four-day strike Tuesday morning to protest the university’s decision. Roughly 1,100 workers represented by Teamsters Local 2010 planned to strike at 22 campuses across the state from Tuesday to Friday. Sacramento State employs 50 workers represented by the union.
“They violated our contract, and that’s why we’re on an unfair labor practice strike right now,” Mason said outside the Sacramento State entrance Tuesday morning.
Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for the CSU’s Office of the Chancellor, said in a statement that the Teamsters are “advancing false claims to justify a strike, harming both their members and the broader university community.”
“Agreements matter. The Teamsters agreed, in writing, to reopen bargaining if a certain level of new, ongoing funds were not received in 2025. That’s exactly where we are,” she said, adding that the university system invited the union back to the bargaining table and urged the Teamsters to “return to good-faith negotiations.”
Bentley-Smith said campuses will remain open, and the university system doesn’t expect the strike will disrupt classes or student services.
On Wednesday, the union leaned on political firepower to pressure the university leaders to pay members’ salary increases.
At San Francisco State University, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien spoke on the side of striking workers. Kounalakis and Thurmond both sit on the CSU’s board of trustees.
“This is pulling back on a promise that the CSU made to 2010, and it is wrong,” Kounalakis said. “I am here today because you deserve a fair contract, and you deserve to have your step increases honored.”
O’Brien criticized the CSU’s decision to withhold the raises for Local 2010 while approving salary increases for university leaders.
“They keep increasing the presidents’ pay, the chancellor’s pay, yet they want to try and say they don’t have the money to afford what they agreed to, which comes out to about $5 million, that’s a disgrace,” O’Brien said.
Last November, the CSU’s board of trustees approved raises, ranging from 5% to 20%, for 13 university presidents after a study found that those executives were paid “well below” that of leaders at peer institutions.
The union went on strike in 2023 over the contract that was reopened last year. Teamsters Local 2010’s contract with the CSU contained a contingency clause that tied salary increases to the allocation of new, ongoing state funding.
After the Legislature cut the university system’s budget by 3% last year to help address the state’s broader budget problem, the CSU reopened its contract with Teamsters Local 2010 and offered the union one-time bonuses instead of the state raises.
Mason and his fellow Teamsters said Tuesday that the CSU has the money to pay for these raises. He cited the university’s decision to increase student tuition by 34% over several years and the fact that the Legislature did not institute as large a budget cut as expected in 2025.
The university system maintains that the $144 million reduction to CSU’s base budget was too large to be able to afford the pay increases that were outlined in the union’s contract. Instead, the CSU accepted a zero-interest loan from the state that must be repaid by July 2026 to help cover salary expenses, including bonuses for university employees.
Last week, Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-San Leandro, introduced legislation that she said would close the loophole in California’s higher education labor law that allows public universities to reopen contracts with workers in the event the state makes budget changes.
The legislation would eliminate language in the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act that requires the CSU to reopen contracts in the event of budget cuts. The bill does not bar unions and the CSU from including contingency clauses in future labor agreements, which is how the university system was able to withhold Teamsters Local 2010’s raises last year.
This story was originally published February 17, 2026 at 1:36 PM.
