offered<\/a> to give a one-time bonus that will be equal to 3% of an employee\u2019s base pay.\u00a0<\/p>\nKevin Davis, a mechanical technician for six years at Fresno State, said that this was his first time participating in a strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been, like, a big union person until now,\u201d Davis said. \u201cLike, seeing the support of their brothers and sisters of the union has meant a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to the strike, the picketers will not be paid by the hour for the four days. However, the union is paying the strikers $150 a day. This does not cover the full wage of the strikers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 10 picketers were rallying on Shaw and Maple avenues near the Kremen School of Education and Human Development building throughout the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brent Gerken, an automotive equipment mechanic for 10 years at Fresno State, said that this was his first time partaking in any type of strike, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first it was different, but now I kind of understand why we\u2019re doing it, why we have to do it,\u201d Gerken said. \u201cHopefully [the strike] open up the eyes of the higher-ups to see we do care and we care about our jobs, we\u2019re all here for the students and we should all be on the same team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerken said that the picketers have one goal, which is to have their original contract, which included a salary increase, honored by the CSU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt [the salary increase] would be immensely helpful, [I\u2019ll] be able to help towards the family, and I have a new baby boy on the way,\u201d Gerken said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arlan Hartmann, automotive equipment mechanic for 11 years at Fresno State, shared a similar sentiment in regard to the salary increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has gone up,\u201d Hartmann said. \u201cIt will just help maintain your standard of living.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked for his opinion on President Sa\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez-Sandoval\u2019s salary increase, Gerken said that it \u201cstings a bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that they have their jobs to do, and so when they tell us no to our raises, but then give themselves raises, it\u2019s kind of like, \u2018I thought we\u2019re all on the same team,\u2019\u201d Gerken said.<\/p>\n
Davis said that Jim\u00e9nez-Sandoval had talked with the strikers while they were handing out flyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a nice guy, I like him personally,\u201d Davis said. \u201cHe supports us by the way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Lisa Bell, public information officer for Fresno State, the university has no additional comments regarding the strike beyond what was said in a campus-wide email on Feb. 13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of Feb. 20, the CSU has not made a statement regarding the strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Picketers took to Fresno State\u2019s campus as part of the state-wide strike put on by the Teamsters Local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-187713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}