When Benikia Kressler, an associate professor of special education at Cal State Fullerton, had her first child in January 2020, she had hoped to take the whole semester off.
The Cal State University system offers 30 days of paid leave, so she tried to put together a plan of using her sick and vacation days.
“It’s just a lot of confusion trying to figure out how I can stretch it to the semester that I need so that I can truly breastfeed and bond and also still pay my bills,” Kressler said.
The combination of leave, sick time, and PTO wasn’t enough to last the 16 weeks of the semester. She couldn’t afford a gap in pay, so she returned to work the last two weeks of the semester, doing department work.
Kressler and other union members of the California Faculty Association are demanding a full semester of parental leave, or 16 weeks, in negotiations with management. The union has voted to authorize a strike if demands, which include higher pay and better access to lactation rooms, are not met.
The issue has been so high on their list of priorities that they lobbied and got legislation passed the last two years for expanded parental leave for Cal State faculty and employees. But Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed both the measures, emphasizing that changes to the parental leave policy should be part of the collective bargaining process. In an October veto message, he noted the measure would cost the state $20 million, and that he “implore[d] both entities to come together to resolve this issue during this negotiation.”
But the two parties have yet to come to an agreement. In addition to citing the cost estimate, university officials say that their current policy is “more generous” than other institutions because there’s no waiting period to take leave.
“The CSU values family and offers faculty an unparalleled benefit of six weeks of fully paid parental leave, available to them upon hire with no waiting period and no cost to the employee. In addition, CSU faculty may access more paid leave time with disability insurance, vacation, and sick leave,” said Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for the Cal State University system.
Union members point to other university systems that offer more leave. Faculty at the State University System of New York recently negotiated 12 weeks of leave at full pay. The University of New Mexico offers a paid semester. The University of California system offers eight weeks of paid parental leave.
But leave policies fall across the board at universities across the country.
Nick Henning, a professor of education at Cal State Fullerton, says a paid semester of parental leave is not only “humane,” but also beneficial for students. If a faculty member has to come back mid-semester or find colleagues to fill in for them, it can be disruptive.
“It gets very clumsy in terms of the interruption that that can cause for people's teaching,” he said.
When Henning’s daughter was born two and a half years ago, he didn’t take leave. Instead, he had an option to reduce his teaching load from four courses a semester to two.
“I had all the same demands in terms of what I need to produce in terms of scholarship and service,” he said. “But now I'm putting parenting on that and that leave that we have, it’s just vastly inadequate.”
He also did the two-course semester when he adopted his now-12-year-old daughter in 2013, who he and his wife had fostered for a year.
“For a foster child, the most important thing would be to be there right away, right? And to be fully at home for a long amount of time in order to develop that bonding,” he said. “It’s inadequate.”
Benikia Kressler, the Fullerton professor, is now tenured. She gave birth three months ago to her second child, and said that at the time she had her first child, she was not tenured, and there can be pressure for people to not take the time that they need.
“It’s really competitive to try to hold onto your position. There's a lot that's expected of, of an untenured person. They take on a lot of service, a lot of teaching responsibilities,” she said.
She’s currently at home with her three month old, and is using leave that her husband, who teaches at San Diego State, donated in order to take a full semester.
“I can't imagine trying to go back to work after 30 days,” she said. “It's just unimaginable. My body is wrecked. I am exhausted.”
