Chants from megaphones blared throughout the San Francisco State University campus yesterday as students, faculty and staff collectively marched to display the potential power they hold for future negotiations with the school’s administration.
The rally was a collaborative effort between SFSU’s student union and five on-campus employee unions. The unions involved include the California State University Employees Union, California Faculty Association, Academic Professionals of California, Teamsters Local 210 and United Auto Workers.
Demonstration participants did not have specific demands for the California State University chancellor’s office or SFSU administration, but felt it was important to send a message to administrators that the campus community disapproves of current conditions.
Char Bennett, humanities graduate student and co-chair of SFSU’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, hopes the organized coalition sends a message to the administration
“The workers on this campus are standing unified together, and that’s something that is a giant threat to administration because they like to keep us separate,” Bennett said. “If one person goes out on strike, everyone goes out on strike, no one crosses the picket line, and the entire function of the university is stopped.”
Demonstrators strode through campus and briefly halted in front of the school on 19th Avenue. Following the march, students, faculty, and staff channeled their frustrations through speeches.
Earlier this year, Teamsters went on strike while CSUEU held a rally in an attempt to pressure SFSU administration to raise their salaries. Neither union was able to secure a significant victory
following their respective demonstrations.
Workers walking down San Francisco State University Campus protesting on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Gabriel Garrett / Contributor)
The previous union action contested staff salaries, an issue seen as a larger administrative issue by some in attendance. Robert Allen, a public health lecturer and CFA department representative, voiced frustration with the lack of transparency regarding faculty cuts.
“If you look at the graph of administrative growth in the CSU system run on campus, how many more administrators can you have? It’s insane compared to the number of people that have been cut,” Allen said. “The University Budget Committee just put out a report that said after years of cutting the lecturer faculty and then taking early retirement buyouts from faculty. Well, they don’t have enough people to teach, so now they’re gonna go back and have to hire more faculty.”
Attendees such as Abdur Sikder, a computer science lecturer, believe the administration’s lack of support for lecturers and professors is lowering the standard of education.
“If faculty are not happy–they’re not taken care of, then students will not be happy either. They will not get the best out of the professor,” Sikder said. “That’s a normal, general understanding. I don’t know why the administration fails to understand that. Maybe they do understand, but they don’t want to do anything.”
Despite no concrete demands from demonstrators, student union elected leader Kenna Klop-Packel notes that the organization is still combating outstanding campus issues. These issues include funding education, student and faculty oversight of the AI budget, protection of students’ freedom of speech, defending SFSU from ICE and improving dorm conditions.
“Students are saying that while these changes are happening, the CSU system is investing $13 million a year into a contract with OpenAI without asking students and faculty if this is something that they want to spend their money on,” Klop-Packel said. “This is our money, it’s our tuition, it’s potential faculty salaries, potential worker salary increases that it’s going into AI instead of these areas that actually impact us materially.”
Two days after announcing her retirement, president Lynn Mahoney addressed the concerns raised by demonstrators.
Workers after the protest standing on Holloway Avenue on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Gabriel Reyes / Golden Gate Xpress)
“I fully support our unions and their right to fair compensation. And their right to protest when they’re not getting fair compensation,” Mahoney said. “While they were outside, I was meeting with associated students, and we continued the conversation I had with the student union last spring about creating our own kind of community values statement and guidelines for AI.”
Mahoney then further addressed concerns over the CSU’s contract with OpenAI. Mahoney says she understands the pushback against artificial intelligence but feels that opponents of the technology must be willing to compromise.
“It’s quite clear in my conversation with students, we always want to center human creativity and human labor. I think we want to be in a world where no one’s forced to do anything,” Mahoney said. “I can’t imagine a world in which I would ever force a faculty member to use AI or a staff member to use AI. We have to have some flexibility because our students are on a spectrum of response. I think you always have to adapt to the times.”
Klop-Packel believes that solidarity begins well before a demonstration takes place. Emphasizing the power held by collective bargaining and unity.
“I think that these demonstrations are beautiful, and a lot of them start out as us having conversations with our classmates about the conditions here on campus,” Klop-Packel said. “ If we don’t know what’s going on and we don’t know anybody else involved, we have no power to unite and stop it.”