October 5, 2022
The SCFA has been in negotiations with the campus administration regarding their proposed 2022-2023 salary equity program, and after reaching a tentative agreement with the administration regarding that program, we brought the final proposal to our members for a vote; over 97% of the votes cast support the final proposal. (SCFA represents all Senate faculty but votes are held among dues-paying members only.)
Overall, SCFA believes that this salary intervention will positively address the intracampus inequities in off-scale salaries and will significantly improve the salaries of many UCSC faculty, especially those who are the lowest paid. We want to take this opportunity to describe SCFA’s bargaining positions and consequent improvements in the final program.
The salary equity program that the administration originally proposed to us was quite similar to what was brought before the Academic Senate in June. We reviewed the Senate commentary carefully, appreciated the nuanced discussions that emerged from the Senate committees, and drew on several of their suggestions in our own negotiations with the administration. SCFA was also able to obtain the salary data relevant for this program and was therefore able to conduct our own statistical analysis of different approaches and scenarios.
The initial proposal from the administration aimed to bring up the salaries of those individuals who are below the average salary compared to other faculty at the same rank and step. It hinged on using the current average salary for each rank/step as a target salary and then providing a salary increase equal to a percentage of that gap for all individuals who were below the target, with higher percentages being used for those with overall lower salaries. These averages and salary tiers were calculated separately for faculty on the B/E/E (Business/Economics/Engineering) salary scale and faculty on the Regular salary scale.
After reviewing the data, SCFA entered the negotiations with four major goals, all intended to create a more truly equitable salary program:
1. Mitigating arbitrariness by using a regression analysis of off-scale salaries rather than the current average salary for each rank/step to set the targets. This intervention was important because, while average off-scale salaries generally go up over time, they are also very uneven, leading some ranks/steps to have very high average salaries compared to the next rank/step. Averages for some ranks/steps are heavily influenced by a few individuals with very high off-scales while other ranks/steps might not have such individuals in their current cohort. This meant that a given faculty member might be “lucky” to, at the time of this assessment, be in a rank/step with a few very highly paid individuals, or “unlucky” and not be in such a cohort at the moment. These average salaries would change each year as people move into different cohorts based on the timing of their reviews, making the proposed targets somewhat arbitrary and potentially introducing new inequities into the system. Using a regression analysis of off-scale amounts rather than looking at distinct data points for average salaries by rank/step helps smooth for this “noise” in the data. This approach also addressed some of the dynamics of salary inversion (when higher ranks/steps receive salaries that are lower than lower ranks/steps) and compression (when higher ranks/steps receive pay that is equal or very similar to that of a lower rank/step) by setting progressively higher target off-scales for each rank/step.
2. Not increasing the salary gap between B/E/E and REG faculty. Reviewing the salary data provided by the administration, SCFA found that average equity increases under the administration’s initial proposal would have been higher for B/E/E faculty compared to their REG peers. This differential is due to B/E/E faculty generally having both higher average salaries as well as slightly higher average off-scales. In order to not exacerbate the salary gap between the two groups of faculty on our campus, SCFA argued for using a single target off-scale amount for all faculty at the same rank/step, regardless of their salary scale. This approach enables us to still address the substantial inequities that exist within B/E/E while also not increasing (and, in fact, slightly reducing) the overall distance between the two groups of faculty.
3. The inclusion of faculty at barrier steps, most especially Associate Step 4. Faculty who have stayed at Associate 4 for more than one review period are often there due to equity issues related to the racialized and gendered distribution of service. Therefore, we advocated for the eligibility of all faculty at Associate Step 4 and Assistant Step 5, regardless of whether or not they received a merit increase at their last review. They were initially excluded from the program and able to be brought in only at their dean’s discretion.
4. The need to address the two faces of inequity: intracampus inequity and intercampus inequity. SCFA believes that these two forms of equity should not be pitted against one another and therefore advocated for dedicating ¼ of the program funds to an across-the-board increase for all UCSC faculty to further address the generalized gap between our salaries and those of our comparison institutions, including across the UC system.
After four productive bargaining sessions, the administration agreed with our proposals on issues one through three. We believe that these are significant achievements in that they create a salary equity program that is far less arbitrary, that does not widen the salary gap between B/E/E and REG faculty, and that includes a key group of faculty who are especially in need of an equity intervention. We were disappointed that the administration was not willing to dedicate a portion of the funds for intercampus equity within this program, but we are heartened by the fact that they are applying the 4% increase to full salaries this year and we will continue to advocate on this issue in the future. [This salary equity program is in addition to the 2022-23 4% increase to full salaries (on and off-scale). Recently SCFA has been actively advocating, in collaboration with Senate leaders, that the campus administration use its discretion to augment UCOP increases to the salary scale by applying them to full salaries in order to address salary competitiveness, and we are happy that the campus administration is following that suggestion this year.]
SCFA believes that the final version of this equity program is greatly improved and, as noted above, positively addresses the intracampus inequities in off-scale salaries, significantly improving the salaries of many UCSC faculty, especially those who are the lowest paid.
If you have any questions, please email SCFA: scfa.assist@gmail.com
SCFA is the only Senate Faculty Association in the UC system with collective bargaining rights. What that means is that SCFA not only represents faculty, we actually have the right to negotiate with, and can win concessions from, our UCSC administration when their policy proposals affect the terms and conditions of our work. If you’re not yet a member and would like to join SCFA, click here, and welcome to your union!
Sincerely,
Deborah Gould, Steve McKay, and Jessica Taft
The SCFA Bargaining Committee, on behalf of
The Santa Cruz Faculty Association