Student Assistant Bargaining Recap | June 8, 2026

Our student assistant bargaining team just got out of our second bargaining session with management this year. Here are the takeaways:

• Management flat out refuses to consider any raises
• They supposedly cannot implement sick time for over a year due to payroll systems
• They want to take away our right to strike

The California State University system serves half-a-million students in the fourth largest economy in the world. Yet, in the bargaining room, the CSU argues that they are politically and financially incapable of providing livable wages and paid sick leave.

Meeting our demands would cost the CSU nothing. But by delaying livable work conditions, the CSU weakens our generational economic mobility. Students are expected to advance to senior positions, yet we aren't given the financial or professional stability to do so.

Our demands for livable conditions are framed as entitlement, yet the CSU system begs for volunteers and demands current workers to go beyond their work descriptions.

The CSU system needs to take accountability for their unwillingness to act and begin wielding their power as a political powerhouse to improve the conditions for all its students and workers.

We will not accept crumbs. We are fighting back.

In unity,

Devon Cenario
Student Assistant Bargaining Team Member
Stanislaus State