CFA demands CSU Bakersfield to avoid layoffs and will meet and confer with management over management’s proposed layoffs, as required by our collective bargaining agreement. This proposed set of faculty layoffs would be the second time in three years for the faculty at that campus.
We find management’s proposed layoffs unnecessary when first-time freshmen and transfer enrollment at Bakersfield is up 25% over the last two years. Additionally, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed increasing ongoing CSU funding by $365.7 million in next year’s budget and CSU tuition is still increasing by 6% a year.
On March 2, CSU management notified CFA that it may need to lay off faculty at CSU Bakerfield. CSU Bakersfield management alleges a projected budget shortfall for the 2026-2027 fiscal year and believes it may need to lay off employees, including faculty members.
The layoff notice comes after CSU Bakersfield management eliminated over 10% of faculty jobs last year. Tracey Salisbury, CFA AVP of Chapter Presidents, South, and CSU Bakersfield professor, said the possibility of additional layoffs is highly concerning.
“There has to be some other solution to budget cuts that don’t limit faculty’s ability to serve the students,” Salisbury said. “The losses from last year’s layoffs are showing both in classroom instruction and what we do outside of the classroom for students. Our faculty have already sacrificed enough.”
According to the CSU’s audited financial statements, instruction represented just 31% of total operating expenses at CSU Bakersfield in 2024-25, so it’s already been cut to the bone. The losses from last year’s non-Article 38 layoffs effectively cut 8% of all CSU jobs in the region.
The CSU Bakersfield layoff notice isn’t unique. It is part of a larger trend in the CSU system where management threatens or implements harmful program cuts, unnecessary mergers, layoffs, and buyouts. Other CSU campuses that have recently been affected include Sonoma, Dominguez Hills, San Francisco, San Jose, Stanislaus, and East Bay.
Margarita Berta-Ávila, CFA president and Sacramento State professor, decried how the layoff notice comes after significant raises for CSU campus presidents and vice chancellors in November and January.
“It is hypocritical for the CSU to issue a layoff notice for faculty at Bakersfield while the CSU Board of Trustees keeps approving raises for executives,” Berta-Ávila said. “The CSU needs to fund the classroom, not the boardroom.”
In the CSU’s own analysis, Bakersfield has an outsized impact on the regional economy. One dollar of state investment leads to $15.24 in industry activity in the Bakersfield area. This is more than double the reported systemwide average impact of a CSU. Instruction is CSU Bakersfield’s core operation and laying off faculty would dismantle the fundamental purpose of the university, as CFA knows that instruction, including mentorship, touches many aspects of a student’s life greater than an economic assessment.
CFA Bakersfield will be holding a union solidarity rally on March 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Student Union Patio to discuss what it will take to stop the budget cuts, save jobs, secure fair pay, and obtain the working conditions we deserve as employees whose labor keeps the campus going. The chapter is organizing the rally in collaboration with CSU Employees Union (CSUEU), Academic Professionals of California (APC), and Teamsters Local 2010.