Tag Archives: Salary/Economic Benefits

Administrative bloat @ 28% boom in #highered #criticaled #edstudies #ubc #bced

Posted on February 10, 2014 by | 1 comment

Scott Carlson, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 5, 2014– Thirty-four pages of research, branded with a staid title and rife with complicated graphs, might not seem like a scintillating read, but there’s no doubt that a report released on Wednesday will punch higher education’s hot buttons in a big way.

The report, “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive: Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education,” says that new administrative positions—particularly in student services—drove a 28-percent expansion of the higher-ed work force from 2000 to 2012. The report was released by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social-science organization whose researchers analyze college finances.

What’s more, the report says, the number of full-time faculty and staff members per professional or managerial administrator has declined 40 percent, to around 2.5 to 1.

Full-time faculty members also lost ground to part-time instructors (who now compose half of the instructional staff at most types of colleges), particularly at public master’s and bachelor’s institutions.

And the kicker: You can’t blame faculty salaries for the rise in tuition. Faculty salaries were “essentially flat” from 2000 to 2012, the report says. And “we didn’t see the savings that we would have expected from the shift to part-time faculty,” said Donna M. Desrochers, an author of the report.

The rise in tuition was probably driven more by the cost of benefits, the addition of nonfaculty positions, and, of course, declines in state support.

Howard J. Bunsis, a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University and chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Collective Bargaining Congress, wasn’t surprised by the conclusions of the study.

“You see it on every campus—an increase in administration and a decrease in full-time faculty, and an increase in the use of part-time faculty,” he said. With that trend, along with rising tuition and falling state support, “you’re painting a pretty fair picture of higher ed,” he continued. “It’s not what it should be. What’s broken in higher ed is the priorities, and it’s been broken for a long time.”

Read More: Chronicle of Higher Ed

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Posted in Academics, Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Critical University Studies, Economics, Job market, Student Movement, Students

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Pro-Labour NDP Open to Real Bargaining with Unions in BC

Posted on November 16, 2012 by | Comments Off on Pro-Labour NDP Open to Real Bargaining with Unions in BC

Feeling pressures of government intervention and the net zero worker mandate of the Liberal Government’s Public Sector Employer’s Council (PSEC), CUPE 2278 Teaching Assistants curtailed job action and the University of British Columbia ratified an Agreement yesterday.  The 0%, 0%, 2%, 2% wage increases for the 2010-2014 contract is in line with the average annual increases of just 0.3% for public employees in the province, the lowest in Canada.

With an upcoming election in the spring of 2013, at this point unions are better off deferring settlements and betting that the 99% have had it with the BC Liberals and will elect an NDP government on 14 May 2013.  After years of the Liberals suppressing wages under PSEC’s net zero worker mandate, which made wage negotiations with employers a fiction, bargaining with the NDP will actually be bargaining.

NDP leader Adrian Dix has demonstrated the signs necessary to lead a pro-labour party to election victory and was quite candid about this in a recent interview with BCBusiness:

Public-sector unions have tolerated “net-zero” wage controls in recent years, but tolerance seems to be wearing thin. Would you be in favour of substantial “catch-up” wage hikes?
You negotiate at the bargaining table and what we’ve had over the last period was real inconsistency from the current government in the way they’ve treated public-sector unions. You’ve had, contrary to specific promises, the tearing up of contracts. Can you imagine engaging in that practice on the business side and that being good for the economy? The [current] government’s bills 27, 28 and 29, which were singularly important in health and education bargaining, were found to be illegal in the courts. That’s their approach. We had to pay for those actions. So I think you need to be balanced in these things.

These are difficult fiscal times and I expect negotiations to be difficult and challenging. Remember, the government at the bargaining table right now is offering wage increases. Should they be offering wage increases? I think the Liberals have answered yes. In order to get agreements in these next two years they’re offering wage increases right now as we speak. So they’re no longer at net zero. You only have one government at a time and they’re negotiating right now. My recommendation to all parties is that they negotiate at the bargaining table.

Read more: BCBusiness November 2012

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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Government, Organizing, Politics, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Faculty and Staff withdraw services at BCIT

Posted on November 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on Faculty and Staff withdraw services at BCIT

Following strike approval of its membership last week, the Faculty and Staff Association (FSA) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology have withdrawn services this afternoon. Seen as a wake-up call, job action will escalate until the Union reaches an agreement. Like a number of other locals in the province, the Union’s contract expired 30 June 2010. “Better salaries and working conditions are needed to attract career-seasoned professionals from industries where wages have kept pace with inflation,” FSA executive director and chief negotiator Paul Reniers said in a press release. “Fair wages will ensure that BCIT can hire and hold on to the kinds of professionals who built this important institution.” The FSA represents over 1,400 BCIT employees including technology and part-time studies faculty, assistant instructors, technical staff, researchers, curriculum development professionals, librarians, program advisors and counselors.

Reniers noted that “low wages are already impacting BCIT’s programs. Our rates for night school are among the lowest in the region, yet 60% of BCIT registrations are in Part-Time Studies. We are losing instructors to other colleges and universities.”

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Posted in Advocacy, Employment rights, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Technology, Unions, Working conditions

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UBC President’s Salary raises questions

Posted on November 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC President’s Salary raises questions

Ok. There have been questions raised concerning a post on administrative salaries and increases over the past 6-7 years at the University of British Columbia. The UBC President’s Office had the Faculty Association retracting a component of a CUPE 2278 letter forwarded to faculty members, which ended in a public apology by FAUBC President Nancy Langton for not fact-checking the Union’s summary of UBC President Toope’s salary increases. So here are some facts…

One question concerns a net increase in administrators or managers in the University and average 5% annual increases in their salaries while the BC Liberal government has designated most public employees as net zero workers. At a national level over the past 3 years, BC employees have received the lowest average increases in the country, averaging just a bit over 0.3% per year. Are administrators’ salaries at UBC increasing, or how can they be, at an average of 5% per year? And why are these same administrators intent on suppressing already excessively low wages, against inflation, raising tuition and costs, etc., of Teaching Assistants?

As GTA wages at UBC have been stagnant (i.e., 0%), administrative salaries have skyrocketed. UBC President Toope’s salary was for 2010-11 depending on which UBC report is used, $528,504 (UBC’s Financial Information Act Report for Year Ended March 31, 2011) or $378,000 + $50,000 Incentive Plan + $58,408 Housing perks + others = $580,978 (UBC’s Public Sector Executive Compensation Report, 2011/12) (For comparative information across Canada, see How Much Does Your University President Make?). Using UBC’s Financial Information Act Report, from 2005, the year UBC began to basically roll over CUPE 2278 contracts, to 2011, the last year of accessible data, the President’s salary rose from $434,567 to $528,504 (22% increase). The Provost’s salary increased from $230,887 to $321,023, a whopping 39% increase! These two are comparison’s between 2005 and 2011 in the differential of salaries for the positions (e.g., President Piper’s outgoing salary and President Toope’s ongoing salary, which is a fair comparison and similar to the way initial appointment salaries are handled). The new Concordia University President’s salary ($357,000) raised eyebrows recently in Quebec on the heels of the largest and most sustained student strike in Canadian history.

Comparatively, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s salary was for 2011, $317,574 (inc. car perk) + benefits + house perk 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa). US President Barack Obama’s salary was for 2011, $400,000 + $50,000 expense account + $100,000 travel account + $19,000 entertainment account = $569,000). Of course, these salaries pale next to private sector University President and corporate Chief salaries. The four top Executives of UBC Properties Trust enjoy a combined $1.3m in salaries, including perks for cars.

The salary of VP Human Resources, who manages bargaining for the University, jumped between 2005 and 2011 from $191,793 to $230,704 (20% increase). The Director of Faculty Relations’ salary rocketed from $119,615 to $198,209 (41% increase). And so on. Deans have made certain that there is similar progress with their salaries. For example, the Business Dean’s salary bounced from $334,196 to $422,304 (26% increase) while the Education Dean’s salary leaped from $216,519 to $261,732 (21% increase). Through 2010, the Arts Dean’s salary quickly grew from $191,408 to $249,816 (30% in 6 years). It is no mystery why the ranks of managers at UBC have swelled in numbers over the past few years. The transition of Associate Deans and others to management via the 2010-12 Collective Agreement merely instrumented trends and ambitions.

Another question raised is why are these same administrators intent on exploiting Sessional faculty members at UBC and suppressing their already pitifully low wages? For example, the Masters of Education Technology revenue generating program at UBC, which has basically bailed the Faculty of Education out of a dire financial crisis (e.g., 130% or  $1,893,015 over budget for its 270 Sessional faculty appointments in 2008-09), uses Sessionals to teach about 85% of its courses and pays them a piecemeal $242.28 per student wage. Denied office space, the Sessionals often work below the minimum wage ($10.25 / hour) after gross hours in and net wages out are calculated.

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Posted in Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Corporate University, Employment rights, Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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UBC: From “Place of Mind” to “Mind Your Place”

Posted on November 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC: From “Place of Mind” to “Mind Your Place”

For the current CUPE 2278 strike, the Teaching Assistants have adopted UBC “Mind Your Place” as an operative theme, playing on UBC’s Strategic Plan logo “Place of Mind.” Like another domino of logos and brands, this one has now fallen. UBC “Mind Your Place” is CUPE 2278’s not so subtle reminder of the TAs’ struggles for the fair working conditions that might allow them to be a part of what Hannah Arendt called in 1973 “the life of the mind.” It’s too easy for University managers to enjoy their perks and salary increases and raise flags to the great “Place of Mind” while passing the “Mind y/our Place” buck to scapegoats such as PSEC. The money is there and will be there, in house at the University, to settle with the students on 5% per year over at least four years.

Many of us recall the previous administration’s campaign brand and logo, “Think about It,” as it fell into some disrepute and was eventually abandoned around 2003-2004 and CUPE 2278’s last strike. The brand had toppled, as graduate student Kedrick James put it at the time, from “Think about It” to “Build on It.” Priorities and power shifted to UBC Properties Trust. Nowadays,the four top Executives of UBC Properties Trust enjoy a cumulative $1.3m in salaries, including perks for cars

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Posted in Advocacy, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Organizing, Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Concordia University president’s salary raises eyebrows

Posted on November 1, 2012 by | 2 comments

Photo by Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL (11 October 2012) — Many on the Concordia University campus are singing the praises of new president Alan Shepard — but news of his generous compensation package on Thursday still sparked some controversy.

With a base salary of $357,000 a year plus plenty of perks* — including eligibility for a performance bonus of up 20 per cent of the annual salary, a housing allowance of $4,200 a month, a monthly car allowance of $1,200 and French classes for him and his family — Shepard’s compensation once again underscores the issue that universities crying for money nevertheless seem to find the resources for highly paid administrators.

“Administrators are paid quite a bit in institutions that are struggling for money,” said Erik Chevrier, a graduate student representative on Concordia’s board of governors.

“This is a problem throughout Canada,” said Lex Gill, another board of governors representative.

Universities say they need to pay market value for good administrators.

McGill University principal Heather Munroe-Blum earned $369,250 in 2011 plus an extra $120,481 in compensation.

But university fiscal mismanagement has been a growing concern; last March, former education minister Line Beauchamp fined Concordia $2 million for unwieldy fiscal management.

Read more:
Montreal Gazette 

*Comparatively, UBC President Toope’s salary was for 2010-11 depending on which UBC report is used, $528,504 (UBC’s Financial Information Act Report for Year Ended March 31, 2011) or $378,000 +   $50,000 Incentive Plan + $58,408 Housing perks + others = $580,978 (UBC’s Public Sector Executive Compensation Report, 2011/12). For access to information across Canada, see How Much Does Your University President Make?

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Posted in Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Corporate University, Employment rights, Equity, Faculty, Organizing, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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CUPE 2278 FAQ for undergraduates about Job Action

Posted on October 28, 2012 by | Comments Off on CUPE 2278 FAQ for undergraduates about Job Action

FAQ for Undergraduate Students at UBC
on Teaching Assistant Job Action

  • What is a union and why is it important? 
    • A union is an organized group of workers who come together to make decisions about the conditions of their work. Through union membership, workers can impact wages, work hours, benefits, workplace health and safety, and other work-related issues. Historically, because of the work of unions, we now have awesome things we kind of take for granted like weekends, the 40-hour work week, compensation if you’re injured on the job, unemployment insurance, job safety standards, minimum wages and so on. By coming together unions give a group of people a stronger voice in trying to advocate for themselves with their employer and to achieve collective benefits. Think of the student union for instance who advocate on your behalf to keep tuition and fees lower, provide space for student groups on campus, advocate for students’ rights on campus etc.
  • What are the big issues for the TAs at UBC?
    • TAs have asked the university for the following key items
    1. An increase in wages (which have not changed since 2010, and were first agreed to back in 2005)
    2. Job security in the form of extended hiring preference (because the average time it takes to complete a masters or doctorate degree is way longer than the two or four year contract currently in existence.
    3. A tuition waiver of some kind (because we must be students to work as TAs so a tuition increase means a de facto pay cut)
    4. A Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for wages so that the province cannot freeze TA wages arbitrarily as they have done with their “Net Zero Mandate” that covers 2010-2012. (Management at UBC got an average of 3% increases each year in remuneration during this time because of their contract language, while TAs got nothing.)
    5. Assistance with childcare costs, which have gone up dramatically in the last few years at UBC and pose a substantial burden on young families that is often the economic equivalent of an additional rent payment each month.
  • What is a strike?
    • A strike is “any cessation or refusal to work by employees, in combination or accordance with a common understanding, where the goal is to restrict or limit service to the employer.”  (Labour Relations Code, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 244, s. 1)
    • This can encompass everything from a refusal to work overtime, to rotating strikes (where only part of the union is on strike at any one time), to creative ways of drawing attention to our labour power. This can also mean a full-blown stoppage of work. Each Job Action/Strike is different and depends largely on the specifics of the union engaging in such activity.
  • What does a strike entail?
    • Remember, it is the university’s responsibility to ensure that you have a stable teaching workforce who are adequately compensated for their experience and training. You might consider adding your own pressure by contacting the university and demanding they offer a fair deal so a settlement can be achieved and life can get back to normal.
    • Depending on what job action the union members are doing on a given day you may experience nothing unusual, you may come across a picket line, you may get fliers and hand outs, you may see parades and marches, who knows… each strike is different and each union does it differently.
    • For most grad students, being a TA is the best part of the experience! As such, we hope to minimize disruption to the learning environment as much as possible while still getting the attention and the respect of the university. If there is no cooperation on the part of the university, pressure will likely increase over time as the job action escalates and you may feel a bigger effect.
  • What is a picket line?
    • Picketing is a form of protest in which people (called picketers) congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place. Often, this is done in an attempt to dissuade others from going in (“crossing the picket line”), but it can also be done to draw public attention to a cause.
    • It can have a number of aims, but is generally to put pressure on the party targeted to meet particular demands and/or cease operations. This pressure is achieved by harming the business through loss of customers and negative publicity, or by discouraging or preventing workers and/or customers from entering the site and thereby preventing the business from operating normally. Picketing is a common tactic used by trade unions during strikes, which will try to persuade members of other unions and non-unionized workers from working. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing_(protest))
  • What does it mean to cross a picket line?
    • Crossing a picket line means you ignore the union’s demonstration and go into the building or place they are picketing. off. You are legally allowed to cross a picket line and no one should prevent you from doing so, but they may try to convince you to support their cause.
    • Crossing a picket line is something you should not do without first considering the effect it may have.
    • The point of a picket line is to draw attention to a group’s cause when they feel they are being treated unjustly. By ignoring that, you are telling the group and their employer that you do not support their cause and that the status quo is okay. If you do not agree that the CUPE 2278 workers deserve a living wage and job security, then let your conscience be your guide.
    • If you absolutely need to get past a picket for some reason, but still support the cause, seek out the picket captain who is in charge and explain to them what’s going on, especially if it affects your studies, and you will be allowed to cross with their ok. Ultimately the decision to cross a picket or not is a personal choice and we can’t tell you what to do, so please give this some thought before you come across a picket.
  • I don’t want to cross the picket line. What do I need to do?
    • See http://vpstudents.ubc.ca/news/strike-action/#3for more information from UBC
    • If you choose not to cross the picket line, you must inform the Dean of the Faculty in which you are registered that you intend not to cross the picket line. Students choosing not to cross picket lines must, within two working days of the commencement of a strike or prior to their first exam, whichever comes first, inform the Dean of the Faculty in which they are registered or in the case of graduate students, the Dean of the Faculty offering their program of study. Students must inform the Dean in person or in writing (i.e. letter or e-mail,) that they will not be attending classes or writing examinations during the strike.
    • Students must provide: their full names, their UBC student IDs, and the course(s) in which they are currently registered. You may not declare your intentions retroactively. If you do not inform your Faculty, the University will assume that you are attending all examinations, classes and course-related activities.
    • Please note that even if you decide not to cross the picket lines, you are required to come to campus to determine whether there is a picket line at all entrances to the building in which your exam is scheduled at the time of the scheduled class or examination, or if there are picket lines set up at all entrances to the University.
  • How long will this last?
    • This is impossible to predict. The strike will end when the union and employer agree on a new contract or when bargaining resumes and is deemed productive by both sides.
  • Why should I support the TAs?
    • Nobody wants to strike and nobody likes the disruption job action has on a campus, but the TAs are asking for reasonable improvements to their job contract with UBC and the university and the province are not respecting the needs of this large group of highly trained workers. TAs are a large group on campus, about 3000 or so, and not respecting their right to demand a fair contract perpetuates an unequal and unjust community on campus.
    • A TA who is economically secure and who feels respected and valued by their employer can focus more of their energies on giving YOU, the undergraduate students, the best educational experience possible, the best guidance, feedback and advice on labs, papers, projects, and future endeavours. We care about our students and look forward to getting back to work under respectful working conditions so we can continue to be a valuable and committed part of your UBC education.
  • Where can I find out more information about this?
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Posted in Employment rights, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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StatsCan: Female university professors make less money than males

Posted on May 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on StatsCan: Female university professors make less money than males

Female university professors make less money than males

University faculties have become more inclusive of women in recent decades, though their salaries still trail those of their male counterparts, new data shows.

Figures from Statistics Canada show the average salary of full-time faculty at Canadian universities was $115,513 in the 2010-11 school year. That was up 2.8 per cent from the previous year.

Among male teaching staff, the average pay was $120,378, and among females, $106,970 Ñ or 88.9 per cent of males’ pay.

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Canadian Professors Are Best Paid in the World—Again

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on Canadian Professors Are Best Paid in the World—Again

The Chronicle: Canadian Professors Are Best Paid in the World—Again

The latest project that looks at professorial paychecks shows that the United States lags behind Canada, India, Italy, and South Africa when it comes to the purchasing power of their salaries and academic fringe benefits, according to data compiled jointly by the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and the Boston College Center for International Higher Education. The data, which cover 28 countries, look only at full-time professors at a time when adjuncts are employed in greater numbers, and the data deal only with professors at public universities. The study, which will be released shortly as a book, evaluates the local purchasing power of those paychecks to rank countries, which could explain the high position of some. However, Canada has consistently reported the highest faculty salaries for years, mainly because most professors are unionized.

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BC Teachers Vote Yes to Strike

Posted on March 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on BC Teachers Vote Yes to Strike

With overwhelming support, BC Teachers approved a motion to strike.  The vote was cast “to resist the unjust actions of the provincial government in yet again moving to impose a contract on the province’s 41,000 public school teachers.  A total of 27,946 teachers voted yes in a province-wide vote conducted February 28 and 29, 2012.  In all, 32,209 teachers cast ballots, of whom 87% voted yes.”  See the BCTF for updates.

The full scale strike, limited to 3 days by the BC Labour Relations Board, begins on Monday morning (6 March). On 27 January, BC teachers wore black (see BCTF Teacher p. 18), to mark the 10th anniversary of Bills 27 and 28, which stripped their collective agreements of class size, composition, and specialist service-levels language.  Bill 22 is now threatening to undermine the teachers’ bargaining rights even more.

Labour advocates see this courageous escalation of job action as a spark for solidarity for coalescing the BC labour movement.  At the University of British Columbia, CUPE and FAUBC contracts are in bargaining and at least two bargaining units, CUPE 116 and CUPE 2278, are looking at job action scenarios.  Many BCTF members teach at the University and the BCTF strike may once again force the Faculty of Education to play its hand, as was the case for the 2005 BC teachers strike as university professors turned out in support and documented the 2005 strike.  Look for leadership here from UBC’s Institute for Critical Education Studies.

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Posted in BC Education, Government, K-12 issues, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes

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NYU Adjuncts Win Pay Increases and Benefits for Summer Work

Posted on April 19, 2011 by | Comments Off on NYU Adjuncts Win Pay Increases and Benefits for Summer Work

The Chronicle: NYU Adjuncts Win Pay Increases and Benefits for Summer Work
April 18, 2011, 6:33 pm

New York University’s 2,400 adjunct faculty members will receive substantial pay increases and benefits for the summer hours they work under the terms of a new contract with the private institution. The agreement, ratified last week, is the product of tough negotiations that had left adjunct faculty members poised to go on strike. In an attempt to deal with the earnings gap between adjunct faculty members who teach credit-bearing courses and the lesser-paid adjunct faculty members who teach noncredit courses, the contract calls for all adjunct faculty members’ pay to rise by the same dollar amount, so that the latter group will see its pay climb at a steeper rate. (The $4-per-contact-hour increase in the contract’s first year amounts to about a 3.6 percent raise for those who teach credit-bearing courses and a 6.7 percent increase for those who teach noncredit courses.) The agreement also builds on gains won by adjunct faculty members in their 2004 contract by, for the first time, offering health insurance, job security, and retirement benefits to those who work in the summer.

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Posted in Contingent labor, Salary/Economic Benefits

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Salary Explorer: See Faculty-Salary Data for More Than 1,300 Colleges

Posted on April 13, 2011 by | Comments Off on Salary Explorer: See Faculty-Salary Data for More Than 1,300 Colleges

The Chronicle: Salary Explorer: See Faculty-Salary Data for More Than 1,300 Colleges

Explore an interactive database on faculty salaries in 2009-10, from a national survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors.

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Faculty Experience Doesn’t Always Pay

Posted on April 13, 2011 by | Comments Off on Faculty Experience Doesn’t Always Pay

The Chronicle: Faculty Experience Doesn’t Always Pay

As annual raises lag, professors look askance at salaries for new hires

The paychecks of professors continue to be squeezed by the lingering effects of the recession.

Tight finances on many campuses have led to another year in which average salaries barely increased, exacerbating in­equities facing seasoned faculty members, whose salaries are stagnating while their newly hired peers are compensated at competitive market rates.

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Presidents Defend Their Pay as Public Colleges Slash Budgets

Posted on April 4, 2011 by | Comments Off on Presidents Defend Their Pay as Public Colleges Slash Budgets

The Chronicle: Presidents Defend Their Pay as Public Colleges Slash Budgets

The total cost of employing Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the U. of Texas system, was $813,892 in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

The highest-paid public-college executives, who receive compensation packages in the high six figures and more, walk a difficult political tightrope. They must at once argue that their state budgets have been cut to the bone and need to be restored, while at the same time acknowledging their rarefied personal financial circumstances in states where layoffs, program closures, and pay reductions have been all too common. In making that case, presidents and the trustees who set their salaries have for years argued that, irrespective of economic conditions, those presidential pay levels are fair, necessary, and performance-driven. While that case appears to have been effectively made in many states, some higher-education officials and compensation experts say a prolonged budget crisis could hamstring the wealthiest presidents as they argue that their institutions are deserving of increasingly scarce public resources.

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Faculty Pay Remains Flat at Public Colleges, Edges Up at Private Colleges

Posted on March 7, 2011 by | Comments Off on Faculty Pay Remains Flat at Public Colleges, Edges Up at Private Colleges

The Chronicle: Faculty Pay Remains Flat at Public Colleges, Edges Up at Private Colleges

Amid a still-recovering economy and tight state finances, faculty members at public colleges saw no increase in pay this year, on average, for the second year in a row, a survey has found. Private-college faculty members did slightly better, receiving an average raise of 2 percent, which kept their pay on pace with inflation.

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Michigan State Ends Retiree Health Benefits for New HIres

Posted on April 14, 2010 by | Comments Off on Michigan State Ends Retiree Health Benefits for New HIres

Lansing State Journal: Michigan State Ends Retiree Health Benefits for New HIres

EAST LANSING — Michigan State University will not offer retiree health benefits to any new faculty or staff beginning this summer, the university announced today.

According to a statement issued this afternoon, the change will not affect faculty and staff hired before July 1, 2010, and commitments already made to new hires will be honored.

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The Worst Salary Year for Faculty

Posted on April 13, 2010 by | Comments Off on The Worst Salary Year for Faculty

Inside Higher Ed: The Worst Salary Year

The average salary of a full-time faculty member in 2009-10 is only 1.2 percent higher than it was a year ago, the lowest year-to-year change in the 50 years that salary data have been collected by the American Association of University Professors. The association released its annual survey of faculty salaries today.

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Posted in Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits

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EGYPT: Academics threaten pay strikes

Posted on April 6, 2010 by | Comments Off on EGYPT: Academics threaten pay strikes

World University News: EGYPT: Academics threaten pay strikes

A recent admission by Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education that the salaries of lecturers at public universities are “paltry” has not mollified them. Indeed, academics are angrier than before and have threatened more protests to pressure the government to substantially increase their salaries.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes

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The Adjunct Health Insurance Catch-22

Posted on April 6, 2010 by | Comments Off on The Adjunct Health Insurance Catch-22

Inside Higher Ed: The Adjunct Health Insurance Catch-22

Tracy Donhardt was so excited that she and fellow adjuncts in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis had found a way to get health insurance together that she wanted to let other adjuncts know they could sign up, too.

But when she asked the university’s human resources department for help getting the word out, the whole plan was, almost immediately, shattered. “I contacted them, said, ‘Hey, look at we did, isn’t it great?’ ” she recalled.

Like so many other adjuncts nationwide, IUPUI’s non-tenure track faculty worked without health insurance. The chance to secure an affordable policy seemed sure to please. The plan, developed by the Associate Faculty Advisory Board, of which Donhardt is president, wasn’t going to cost the university a cent in contributions; it just gave the adjuncts the huge actuarial benefit of being in a grou

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Adjuncts, job security and compensation…How Fast Is Fast Enough?

Posted on March 29, 2010 by | Comments Off on Adjuncts, job security and compensation…How Fast Is Fast Enough?

Inside Higher Ed: How Fast Is Fast Enough?

SAN JOSE — At a forum for adjunct faculty members Saturday, organizers asked participants to write down notes about their concerns about job security and compensation issues. The first note read aloud asked: “How do we get multi-year contracts?” To which one adjunct in the crowd shouted: “How can we get one-year contracts?”

The differing perspectives reflected in the exchange were present throughout the forum and other sessions here at the biennial joint meeting of the higher education divisions of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Both unions have placed more emphasis on adjunct issues in recent years — and both can point to organizing drives and contract successes as a result.

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Posted in Contingent labor, Salary/Economic Benefits, Working conditions

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