9/7/2011: Seems like a good time to repost the data on UO faculty salaries produced by Sarah Douglas and Marie Vitulli for UO’s AAU chapter:
Full professor salary was at 81% of peers, associates at 86%, assistants at 94%. My guess is that with the June 2011 raises full professors are now at 86%, associates at 90%, assistants at 93%. With benefits? Who knows.
Faculty raises were a priority for Lariviere from day 1, when the June 2009 story came out that UO professor salaries were the lowest in the AAU – below Missouri by some 10%.
UO Administrators? Last time I looked, in 2009, they were typically paid 100% of the median for 4 year public research schools. The Chronicle has not updated it’s data on this since 2008-09.
Dog remarks
if you assume that our peers made no raises
in 2011 then your “guess” is about right. As I posted before, within CAS there was a real emphasis on Full Prof equity within the recent
raise round (which was effective May 1, 2011) and,
on average, Full Prof’s should have gained 5-6%
with respect to peers.
At this point, however, its unclear if the planned second round of raises for Jan 1, 2012
will actually occur. I would bet against this
happening now.
Would like to see the analogous report from the senate budget committee. Did they really compare comparable types of positions e.g. do any of those other schools’ salaries include medical school, engineering, etc.?
The total compensation is really screwy to figure. In the first place, PERS (or equivalent for ORP people) contributions were down 3% in Oregon from their trendline during the last biennium. This coming biennium they’re about 3% above trendline, i.e. 6% higher. So add a 6% boost for compensation to the above table.
But then, a lot of that “compensation” is used to pay for older Tier I and even retired people, even for the assistant profs. So their actual compensation is ????
And then, consider the Tier I ORP people who were in PERS before the ORP option began. They get both their ORP contribution, plus the PERS guaranteed 8% return on their PERS accounts. So again, their compensation is ?????
My guess: if full professors are at 86% of salary parity now, they are probably at something like 98% of compensation parity for the current biennium and maybe 95% long-term (unless the state figures out a way to screw them on their pension benefits, always a threat).
And then there’s one last factor: nobody can seriously claim that UO is still competitive academically with most of the schools on that “comparator” list! Years of deterioration really do have an effect.
No one is saying faculty aren’t underpaid. What they are saying is that faculty and administrators got increases while the classified staff are being asked to take a cut in benefits and more furlough days to help balance the budget. It’s the us vs. them, the drones vs. the Queen Bees mentality. Some UO administrators were paid well below their peers but received no increase even when inequity was established. Just depends who you are and, possibly, who you’re doing I guess.
The classified staff are negotiating with the OUS, not UO. That was their choice when they formed the union. So their beef is with OUS, not UO. Even if UO wanted to give all the classified staff a 20% raise, it wouldn’t do a lick of good.
The last anonymous reminds us that the classified staff are negotiating with the OUS, not the UO. Then goes on to say it was our choice when we formed the union. A point or two of clarification is in order:
Long before I started work here at the UO over 21 years ago OUS (then called the Oregon State System of Higher Education) was more closely wedded to the Department of Administrative Services in the bargaining process, i.e., more closely overseen by the “State.” Then in 1995 the the OSSHE convinced the legislature that they could do things more efficiently if they were to some degree broken away from the DAS.
Though some union folks may have been duped into thinking we would fare better bargaining with the Oregon University System, it was not a breakup the union or its members orchestrated. And, alas, we have not fared better….
Meanwhile, fast forward to a time (like now) when there is serious talk of privatization by some folks in power and a parallel concern being expressed by some UO classified employees over how this could impact how we bargain.
As for the light shining on UO raises, those just happen to be the easiest ones for UO employees to track, and thus they were the ones shared with the RG. It certainly would be interesting if we found out there is proof of bloat at one or more other OUS schools. I have no doubt that curious folks are on the look out…
And what DOES it mean to say that giving the classified staff a 20% raise would not do a “lick of good”???? Uh, as one who has topped out and has no more steps to move up to, and have not for several years…and who has taken a drop in pay for the last two years, I strongly disagree.
And my morale would jump way up with just a 4.75% step increase, thank you very much!
It would be unfortunate if faculty and classified staff turn on each other. It hasn’t gotten there yet but I fear things are heading that way.
The faculty I know are all strongly supportive of the classified staff’s interests. The union has chosen to bargain with OUS, as far as I can tell for very defensible reasons – leverage through collective bargaining, and equity for equal work at different institutions. We should respect their reasons and support them pursuing their interests in the way they see best, and refrain from “you made your bed now lie in it” sorts of statements.
At the same time, classified staff need to recognize that things work very differently for faculty. We get our leverage not through collective bargaining but because UO competes for faulty on a national job market; and we don’t insist on equity because we do different work on different campuses. So we negotiate at the individual or campus level, while the union negotiates statewide, and that means that sometimes one group will make advances when the other doesn’t.
If someone can convincingly show that UO faculty raises are hurting classified staff, we are all ears. But if it’s just rhetoric meant to fire people up while making faculty look bad, it will erode support among faculty who are otherwise inclined to be allies with the classified staff.
P.S: Starscarves: the anonymous above (not me) said if UO wanted to give classified staff raises it wouldn’t do a lick of good, because UO would not actually be able to make that happen. Nobody is saying that actual raises would not help the classified staff.
Good post anonymous. I agree we will get further if we work together. I would wager both faculty and administrators are behind the classified staff 100%. Starscarves, what can we do in very practical terms to help you in your fight?
Please note I am an administrator, but one in the middle of the pack. I am not a provost or president. It also hurts to hear our whole group disparaged in this venue. Many of us work very hard as do faculty and classified employees. Many of us make much less than our counterparts at other universities and in the private sector.
If the classified staff at UO wanted to have a UO union, I think they could, though I’m no expert on this. But, regardless, it’s most certainly not a matter of “us vs. them” at least not at UO. Like it or not, OUS is the management bargaining agency, there is nothing UO administration, faculty, or non-classified staff can do about that, as far as I know.
What I said about 20% raises was this:
“Even if UO wanted to give all the classified staff a 20% raise, it wouldn’t do a lick of good.”
Even if UO WANTED to give 20% raises — or 4.75%, or 80% — it wouldn’t do any good, because it is not up to UO to decide.
UO can support the SEIU people, Lariviere can, all they want. I “support” them too, I know that we don’t need frontline staff taking furlough days, because they have work to do. Will it do any good? How much pull do you think anyone at UO has with Pernsteiner?