The UVic Faculty Association Compensation and Benefits Committee wants to hear from you! Sound off on work place issues that concern you and your colleagues.
I'm posting these comments on behalf of Laurel Bowman -- a glitch in the software prevented her from posting them herself.
From Laurel: 1) Re: competitive compensation, would unionizing make a difference? If so, should we be pursuing that option?
2) re: benefits, many universities supply subsidized or free tuition for children of faculty members. U.Vic does not. That, and decent, affordable, AVAILABLE child care are the two issues that most concern me. Can we look into these issues?
Regarding point (1), technically we have sufficient data to get a good idea for what unionization could do regarding compensation. We can compare salary increments of unionized faculty to non-unionized faculty across Canada over the past 40 years. The unionization wave began in the 70's so there's plenty of data available.
IMO more interesting aspects of unionization to consider for discussion would be the dynamics at places like Dalhousie. Would unionization make it more difficult to attract exceptional talent -- restrictions on merit increments that are too rigid, etc?
I've seen an episode where CUPE rules caused serious trouble in a department, making it impossible to replace an employee that had left.
Then again, I'm curious to know to what extent unionization could cut red tape. If I want to change a student's grade, I have to fill out a form, sign, the chair has to sign and the dean has to sign. This is an unnecessary amount of red tape for something that at most institutions requires only that the professor approves. In what I'd consider a more functional situation, the chair, dean and undergraduate advisors can observe the professor's action and intervene *afterwards* if they have reason, and likely with better information, after all, at the grade change now these administrators only have the prof's word. So basically we're just wasting people's time with low-event administrative churn.
To me it seems like unionization is perhaps the wrong issue. As an institution we are involved in many transitions. Unionization may turn out to be a bunch of flash that stops us from addressing the real problems.
I have watched our salaries go down relative to our competitors for more than a decade, and my own salary is at least $10,000 less than the average for my rank. Whatever token faith I might have had in the university's good intentions is long gone.
A unionization drive, though I'm generally in favour of it, would have to be carefully planned and timed, so may not be the immediate answer. More importantly, the bargaining teams and the Exec should use the biggest sticks they can find and I'll support them.
How do we post a blog to this, putting in our sense of things? I feel strongly that we need some leverage with the admin -- more faculty participation and/or certification so we can threaten to strike (though in the absence of the first, the second is empty). We need improvement, and there are many issues on which we should be making progress as a unit -- 33% of faculty replied to the childcare action group's survey in one week! Let's get this stuff on the table as issues of central concern for the membership and not to be ignored or brushed aside by the admin. Grrr...
As for the previous comment on unionization resulting in negatively impacting recruitment for the reason that high merit may go unrewarded... my understanding from a colleague in Ontario is that they all go up a flat rate of $5,000 per year - regardless. They're unionized. Here at UVic, only a person achieving 4 MIs would get $695 x 4 ($2780) plus $800 CPI = $3580 raise... seems to me like the unionized approach works out better financially... A 2 MI average faculty member would go up only $2190. Our juniors are starting off only $5-10,000 above the floor here ($50-55,000 ish back in 2001/2004) while our peers (yes, we graduate with other Ph.D. students who get academic jobs and compare notes on EVERYTHING across Canada) are getting hired closer to $75-80,000 and THEN go up from there. The recent % increases across BC institutions for faculty salaries also puts us behind as we are paid the lowest, so our % increase will be lower than the % increase received by our SFU/UBC counterparts. It lets us fall even further behind when it comes to equity.
In BC, our merit system is a "zero sum gain" system and (look it up) it is criticized by specialists as one that does not work. As a new faculty member, I think there is a lot we could throw out in what we currently have... Because our university is now really trying to sell its "research intensive" banner, it is hiring young academics from tier 1 universities, but the tier 2 tactics for compensation aren't working to please. If UVic wants to hire Tier 1 academics, then it should compensate us higher than bottom of the scale next to Newfoundland. The teaching load at UVic is also quite disparate from equivalent universities (we teach 1 more course than SFU and 2 more courses than McGill and yet we are expected to compete nationally against them). My understanding is that a full-time instructor (teaching only) at UBC only teaches one more course than what we do as faculty here in my department. We are worked more and paid less! I am all for talking with a stick. Salary increase (or at least a more restricted range as lower salaries to start and very high salaries at the end of career doesn't make sense to me when we need it most at the start with student loans, child care expenses, and expensive real estate), across the board raises like Ontario instead of MI raises, teaching load, and child care provisions are important issues. How's that for a 'Sound Off'?
swirvine, you make the comparison to unions where they have a $5000/year increment. Is there a mechanism that would guarantee that our hypothetical union representatives would negotiate similar increments? As far as I understand, we'd still need a willing partner in the BC government to pull that off. And with the current political and economic climate I wonder how BC voters would react to academics seeking pay raises they couldn't imagine themselves? I'm not saying these are my particular views but if we're going to have a serious unionization drive, we'll need serious answers to concerns like that.
Comments on the blog -- looks good.
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ReplyDeleteDespite all this data I'm not optimistic we'll get a decent settlement given the Olympics, the economy, etc. I foresee a settlement of 0%, 0%, 0%. :(
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm posting these comments on behalf of Laurel Bowman -- a glitch in the software prevented her from posting them herself.
ReplyDeleteFrom Laurel:
1) Re: competitive compensation, would unionizing make a difference? If
so, should we be pursuing that option?
2) re: benefits, many universities supply subsidized or free tuition for
children of faculty members. U.Vic does not. That, and decent, affordable,
AVAILABLE child care are the two issues that most concern me. Can we look
into these issues?
Regarding point (1), technically we have sufficient data to get a good idea for what unionization could do regarding compensation. We can compare salary increments of unionized faculty to non-unionized faculty across Canada over the past 40 years. The unionization wave began in the 70's so there's plenty of data available.
ReplyDeleteIMO more interesting aspects of unionization to consider for discussion would be the dynamics at places like Dalhousie. Would unionization make it more difficult to attract exceptional talent -- restrictions on merit increments that are too rigid, etc?
I've seen an episode where CUPE rules caused serious trouble in a department, making it impossible to replace an employee that had left.
Then again, I'm curious to know to what extent unionization could cut red tape. If I want to change a student's grade, I have to fill out a form, sign, the chair has to sign and the dean has to sign. This is an unnecessary amount of red tape for something that at most institutions requires only that the professor approves. In what I'd consider a more functional situation, the chair, dean and undergraduate advisors can observe the professor's action and intervene *afterwards* if they have reason, and likely with better information, after all, at the grade change now these administrators only have the prof's word. So basically we're just wasting people's time with low-event administrative churn.
To me it seems like unionization is perhaps the wrong issue. As an institution we are involved in many transitions. Unionization may turn out to be a bunch of flash that stops us from addressing the real problems.
I have watched our salaries go down relative to our competitors for more than a decade, and my own salary is at least $10,000 less than the average for my rank. Whatever token faith I might have had in the university's good intentions is long gone.
ReplyDeleteA unionization drive, though I'm generally in favour of it, would have to be carefully planned and timed, so may not be the immediate answer. More importantly, the bargaining teams and the Exec should use the biggest sticks they can find and I'll support them.
How do we post a blog to this, putting in our sense of things? I feel strongly that we need some leverage with the admin -- more faculty participation and/or certification so we can threaten to strike (though in the absence of the first, the second is empty). We need improvement, and there are many issues on which we should be making progress as a unit -- 33% of faculty replied to the childcare action group's survey in one week! Let's get this stuff on the table as issues of central concern for the membership and not to be ignored or brushed aside by the admin. Grrr...
ReplyDeleteAre Assocn docs public info?
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be just on an open site.
Uvic seems to be always twittering about how great it is... maybe time to twitter too.
As for the previous comment on unionization resulting in negatively impacting recruitment for the reason that high merit may go unrewarded... my understanding from a colleague in Ontario is that they all go up a flat rate of $5,000 per year - regardless. They're unionized. Here at UVic, only a person achieving 4 MIs would get $695 x 4 ($2780) plus $800 CPI = $3580 raise... seems to me like the unionized approach works out better financially... A 2 MI average faculty member would go up only $2190. Our juniors are starting off only $5-10,000 above the floor here ($50-55,000 ish back in 2001/2004) while our peers (yes, we graduate with other Ph.D. students who get academic jobs and compare notes on EVERYTHING across Canada) are getting hired closer to $75-80,000 and THEN go up from there. The recent % increases across BC institutions for faculty salaries also puts us behind as we are paid the lowest, so our % increase will be lower than the % increase received by our SFU/UBC counterparts. It lets us fall even further behind when it comes to equity.
ReplyDeleteIn BC, our merit system is a "zero sum gain" system and (look it up) it is criticized by specialists as one that does not work. As a new faculty member, I think there is a lot we could throw out in what we currently have... Because our university is now really trying to sell its "research intensive" banner, it is hiring young academics from tier 1 universities, but the tier 2 tactics for compensation aren't working to please. If UVic wants to hire Tier 1 academics, then it should compensate us higher than bottom of the scale next to Newfoundland. The teaching load at UVic is also quite disparate from equivalent universities (we teach 1 more course than SFU and 2 more courses than McGill and yet we are expected to compete nationally against them). My understanding is that a full-time instructor (teaching only) at UBC only teaches one more course than what we do as faculty here in my department. We are worked more and paid less! I am all for talking with a stick. Salary increase (or at least a more restricted range as lower salaries to start and very high salaries at the end of career doesn't make sense to me when we need it most at the start with student loans, child care expenses, and expensive real estate), across the board raises like Ontario instead of MI raises, teaching load, and child care provisions are important issues. How's that for a 'Sound Off'?
swirvine, you make the comparison to unions where they have a $5000/year increment. Is there a mechanism that would guarantee that our hypothetical union representatives would negotiate similar increments? As far as I understand, we'd still need a willing partner in the BC government to pull that off. And with the current political and economic climate I wonder how BC voters would react to academics seeking pay raises they couldn't imagine themselves? I'm not saying these are my particular views but if we're going to have a serious unionization drive, we'll need serious answers to concerns like that.
ReplyDelete