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California College of the Arts Staff Union Strikes, Citing Unfair Labor Practices

Members of the California College of the Arts staff union point to salaries at the administrative level, which they see as excessively high, and question why the school isn’t paying their lower wage workers more. The school’s 2020 990 filing shows four administrators made well over $270,000 in 2019. President Stephen Beal made a base salary of more than $580,000 while working 37.5 hours per week. Such a salary is over $150,000 more than both the current Mayor of San Francisco and the President of the United States. The 990 also estimates Beal made over $100,000 in addition to his base salary in “other compensation from the organization and related organizations.”

Published

4 years ago

February 12, 2022

Oakland Post

Members of the California College of the Arts staff union march outside of the school's Oakland campus on February 9. Photo by Zack Haber.

By Zack Haber

The staff union at California College of the Arts (CCA), a small, private college founded in 1907, engaged in a four-day strike and protest. They’re accusing the school of unfair labor practices that include stalling contract negotiations in an effort to withhold pay increases and benefits.

“We have a unionized workplace now,” said SEIU 1021 chapter President Matt Kennedy, who’s worked in the tech department of the college for 10 years. “CCA needs to acknowledge that. It’s taking forever to come to an agreement because they aren’t.”

The protests featured rallies, teach-ins, group art-making projects and daily pickets that started February 8 and end on February 12. The actions are taking place on the school’s San Francisco campus every day except Wednesday, when the protest moved to the school’s Oakland campus. Around 200 people, including union members and their supporters, showed up each day to the pickets.

In interviews with this reporter, Kennedy, along with three other current or former workers at CCA, all accused the school of bargaining in bad faith.

“CCA has been stonewalling and dragging their feet,” said Kēhau Lyons, an academic advisor who’s worked at CCA for about two and a half years and has been observing the bargaining sessions. “The management side just doesn’t want to get this completed.”

CCA’s staff successfully voted to unionize with SEIU 1021 in April of 2019. Since then, staff members say they have not received any raises outside of those required by law. While contract negotiations started in October of 2019, CCA’s staff is still working without a union contract. A study by Bloomberg Law based on National Labor Relations Board data shows that, between 2004 and the first half of 2021, the average amount of time it took employers and unions to agree on a first contract was a little over one year and one month. The union and CCA’s negotiations have, thus far, taken over two years and four months.

In an email, CCA Director of Communications Daniel Owens-Hill, disagreed with staff who accused the college of stalling negotiations.

“CCA remains ready and willing to negotiate as frequently as needed to achieve a fair and mutually beneficial collective bargaining agreement,” Owens-Hill wrote. “The college has a comprehensive proposal on the table that provides wage increases for our valued staff while also maintaining our ongoing commitment to student financial aid and a financially sustainable future.”

On September 27 of last year, National Labor Relations Board Regional Director Valerie Hardy-Mahoney sided with the union by issuing a Complaint and Notice of Hearing stating that CCA had “been failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith with the union.” In that same document, she also proposed new bargaining guidelines for the college to follow going forward.

CCA is currently offering a 2% wage increase to all staff in the union. Workers interviewed for this article see that raise as inadequate and stressed that their most important request while bargaining has been “raising the floor” for staff salaries. To pay the expenses needed to live in the Bay Area, staff said, they want a minimum wage of $55,000. Kennedy said salary records show 40% of CCA staff makes less than $55,000 per year, and 10% make between $36,000 and $45,000. For many workers, the 2% increase would fall short of providing the minimum salary.

CCA workers point to salaries at the administrative level, which they see as excessively high, and question why the school isn’t paying their lower wage workers more. The school’s 2020 990 filing shows four administrators made well over $270,000 in 2019. President Stephen Beal made a base salary of more than $580,000 while working 37.5 hours per week. Such a salary is over $150,000 more than both the current Mayor of San Francisco and the President of the United States. The 990 also estimates Beal made over $100,000 in addition to his base salary in “other compensation from the organization and related organizations.”

In April of 2020, Beal’s base salary was cut by 25%, while the senior vice president’s was cut by 10%, and the vice president’s was cut by 5%.

CCA staff union members say they have noticed a high employment turnover rate which they attribute to their co-workers not receiving high enough pay. Emails from CCA’s Human Resources Department show that, since August, 19 staff union members have stopped working at the school, which is about 15% of the total union staff.

Randy Nakamura has taught as an adjunct at CCA’s graduate design program for the last six years, and is also part of CCA’s adjunct union’s bargaining unit. CCA’s adjunct union is separate from the staff union, but Nakamura and other adjuncts are also trying to reach a contract with CCA.

Nakamura says that since the CCA adjunct union contract expired in June of 2020, he and his fellow union members’ experiences bargaining to renew their contract have been similar to the staff union’s efforts to get CCA to agree to a first contract.

“CCA has taken every opportunity to not bargain with us,” said Nakamura. “Sometimes they’ll make us wait an hour and a half in a three-hour bargaining session just to talk.”

After a year and a half of bargaining, the adjunct union has not yet been able to renew its contract with CCA. Seeing themselves in a similar struggle as the staff union, over 100 CCA’s adjunct union member supported CCA’s staff union by sympathy striking, and not teaching classes during the strike.

Some adjuncts also joined staff on the picket line. Additionally, members of the CCA Student Union and some other CCA students who sympathize with the staff strike criticized CCA’s 2% wage increase offer as too low and picketed and did not attending classes to show their support.

“The staff and adjunct’s working conditions are student learning conditions,” the CCA Student Union wrote on a recent instagram post. “We as students completely benefit from union bargaining and a fair contract for our beloved staff.”

CCA faculty who are tenured or on tenure track are not part of the staff union and have separate independent contracts. But they also showed support.

“We are not willing to cross the picket line,” reads a support letter released on February 7 that 99 such faculty members signed. “[We] will instead find ways to express peaceful solidarity during the strike, including engaging in strike-related teach-ins and pedagogical activities.”

Through their spokesperson, David Owens-Hill, CCA criticized the strike.

“At a time when we are making rapid progress in negotiations and have reached agreement on so many items, a strike benefits no one,” wrote Owens-Hill in an email, “not our staff, not our faculty, and certainly not our students, who have just returned to fully in-person classes for the first time in nearly two years.”

CCA staff union members disagree with Owens-Hill.

“It’s important to show in our strike that CCA can’t get away with this,” said SEIU’s Kennedy. “Better working conditions and compensation make better learning conditions, and the college needs to make that a priority. But they’re not.”

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

Published

6 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Lu Lu’s House is Not Just Toying Around with the Community

Wilson and Lambert will be partnering with Mayor Barbara Lee on a toy giveaway on Dec. 20. Young people, like Dremont Wilkes, age 15, will help give away toys and encourage young people to stay in school and out of trouble. Wilkes wants to go to college and become a specialist in financial aid. Sports agent Aaron Goodwin has committed to giving all eight young people from Lu Lu’s House a fully paid free ride to college, provided they keep a 3.0 grade point average and continue the program. Lu Lu’s House is not toying around.

Published

5 days ago

December 20, 2025

Oakland Post

Tania Fuller Bryant, Zirl Wilson, Dremont Wilkes, Tracy Lambert and Dr. Geoffrey Watson. Courtesy Oakland Private Industry

Special to the Post

Lu Lu’s House is a 501c3 organization based in Oakland, founded by Mr. Zirl Wilson and Mr. Tracy Lambert, both previously incarcerated. After their release from jail, they wanted to change things for the better in the community — and wow, have they done that!

The duo developed housing for previously incarcerated people, calling it “Lu Lu’s House,” after Wilson’s wonderful wife. At a time when many young people were robbing, looting, and involved in shootings, Wilson and Lambert took it upon themselves to risk their lives to engage young gang members and teach them about nonviolence, safety, cleanliness, business, education, and the importance of health and longevity.

Lambert sold hats and T-shirts at the Eastmont Mall and was visited by his friend Wilson. At the mall, they witnessed gangs of young people running into the stores, stealing whatever they could get their hands on and then rushing out. Wilson tried to stop them after numerous robberies and finally called the police, who Wilson said, “did not respond.” Having been incarcerated previously, they realized that if the young people were allowed to continue to rob the stores, they could receive multiple criminal counts, which would take their case from misdemeanors to felonies, resulting in incarceration.

Lu Lu’s House traveled to Los Angeles and obtained more than 500 toys
for a Dec. 20 giveaway in partnership with Oakland Mayor Barbara
Lee. Courtesy Oakland Private Industry,

Wilson took it upon himself to follow the young people home and when he arrived at their subsidized homes, he realized the importance of trying to save the young people from violence, drug addiction, lack of self-worth, and incarceration — as well as their families from losing subsidized housing. Lambert and Wilson explained to the young men and women, ages 13-17, that there were positive options which might allow them to make money legally and stay out of jail. Wilson and Lambert decided to teach them how to wash cars and they opened a car wash in East Oakland. Oakland’s Initiative, “Keep the town clean,” involved the young people from Lu Lu’s House participating in more than eight cleanup sessions throughout Oakland. To assist with their infrastructure, Lu Lu’s House has partnered with Oakland’s Private Industry Council.

For the Christmas season, Lu Lu’s House and reformed young people (who were previously robbed) will continue to give back.

Lu Lu’s House traveled to Los Angeles and obtained more than 500 toys.

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Desmond Gumbs — Visionary Founder, Mentor, and Builder of Opportunity

Gumbs’ coaching and leadership journey spans from Bishop O’Dowd High School, Oakland High School, Stellar Prep High School. Over the decades, hundreds of his students have gone on to college, earning academic and athletic scholarships and developing life skills that extend well beyond sports.

Published

5 days ago

December 20, 2025

Oakland Post

NCAA football history was made this year when Head Coach from Mississippi Valley State, Terrell Buckley and Head Coach Desmond Gumbs both had starting kickers that were Women. This picture was taken after the game. Courtesy photo.

Special to the Post

For more than 25 years, Desmond Gumbs has been a cornerstone of Bay Area education and athletics — not simply as a coach, but as a mentor, founder, and architect of opportunity. While recent media narratives have focused narrowly on challenges, they fail to capture the far more important truth: Gumbs’ life’s work has been dedicated to building pathways to college, character, and long-term success for hundreds of young people.

A Career Defined by Impact

One of his most enduring contributions is his role as founder of Stellar Prep High School, a non-traditional, mission-driven institution created to serve students who needed additional structure, belief, and opportunity. Through Stellar Prep numerous students have advanced to college — many with scholarships — demonstrating Gumbs’ deep commitment to education as the foundation for athletic and personal success.

NCAA football history was made this year when Head Coach from
Mississippi Valley State, Terrell Buckley and Head Coach Desmond
Gumbs both had starting kickers that were women. This picture was
taken after the game.

A Personal Testament to the Mission: Addison Gumbs

Perhaps no example better reflects Desmond Gumbs’ philosophy than the journey of his son, Addison Gumbs. Addison became an Army All-American, one of the highest honors in high school football — and notably, the last Army All-Americans produced by the Bay Area, alongside Najee Harris.

Both young men went on to compete at the highest levels of college football — Addison Gumbs at the University of Oklahoma, and Najee Harris at the University of Alabama — representing the Bay Area on a national level.

Building Lincoln University Athletics From the Ground Up

In 2021, Gumbs accepted one of the most difficult challenges in college athletics: launching an entire athletics department at Lincoln University in Oakland from scratch. With no established infrastructure, limited facilities, and eventually the loss of key financial aid resources, he nonetheless built opportunities where none existed.

Under his leadership, Lincoln University introduced:

Football
Men’s and Women’s Basketball
Men’s and Women’s Soccer

Operating as an independent program with no capital and no conference safety net, Gumbs was forced to innovate — finding ways to sustain teams, schedule competition, and keep student-athletes enrolled and progressing toward degrees. The work was never about comfort; it was about access.

Voices That Reflect His Impact

Desmond Gumbs’ philosophy has been consistently reflected in his own published words:

“if you have an idea, you’re 75% there the remaining 25% is actually doing it.”
“This generation doesn’t respect the title — they respect the person.”
“Greatness is a habit, not a moment.”

Former players and community members have echoed similar sentiments in public commentary, crediting Gumbs with teaching them leadership, accountability, confidence, and belief in themselves — lessons that outlast any single season.

Context Matters More Than Headlines

Recent articles critical of Lincoln University athletics focus on logistical and financial hardships while ignoring the reality of building a new program with limited resources in one of the most expensive regions in the country. Such narratives are ultimately harmful and incomplete, failing to recognize the courage it takes to create opportunity instead of walking away when conditions are difficult.

The real story is not about early struggles — it is about vision, resilience, and service.

A Legacy That Endures

From founding Stellar PREP High School, to sending hundreds of students to college, to producing elite athletes like Addison Gumbs, to launching Lincoln University athletics, Desmond Gumbs’ legacy is one of belief in young people and relentless commitment to opportunity.

His work cannot be reduced to headlines or records. It lives on in degrees earned, scholarships secured, leaders developed, and futures changed — across the Bay Area and beyond.