Hi all,
From this tiny corner of the world (philosophy), things look very
different. First of all, we never ever get market differentials
over here (can't figure out why, myself, but there you go).
Secondly, our scale is, indeed, compressed by the lights of our
discipline. But is the top that is too low, not the bottom. We
are in the middle of hiring at the moment. We had 472 applicants [sic].
We are flying out five, all of whom have other interviews - at
Harvard, NYU, and other top places. Not a one has even asked
about the salary, but I know for a fact that it is perfectly
competitive. This is a good job (if you want to see a bunch of
nervous candidates discussing how good, have a look at http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.ca/2014/01/dont-make-me-turn-this-car-around.html?m=1#comment-form
search for "SFU" to bypass all the other chatter - they really
are nervous)
No problem hiring at the junior level at all (except lack of
positions!) We'd probably have a harder time hiring a big-name
senior person with our salaries. But, frankly, the chance of
getting a position like that is somewhat lower than that of
Steven Harper supporting research on climate change.
I am not sure at all what I think about unionization, but thought
a few word about the scale from the perspective of the "have-nots"
was in order.
Martin
On 31/01/2014 4:12 PM, Lou Hafer wrote:
Folks,
I'll add a bit of personal experience, a few meta-issues, and
a healthy dose of personal opinion. And state off the top that I
was not able to attend the anti-union forum.
When I came to SFU in 1981, differentials and retention awards
were still rare. There were two threads behind that:
* The salary scale had not yet slid to its current, woefully
inadequate, level.
* There was a notion that the job of a university professor was
to teach and perform research. That job was not any more or
less difficult based on subject, hence the pay should not
differ
from one subject to another. Merit moved you up the salary
scale
more or less quickly.
This began to change significantly within a few years of my
arrival.
My recollection was that even at the time when I was part of
the SFUFA table team for bargaining (late 80's/early 90's? I'm
getting senile :-) the base of the salary scales was falling
behind inflation. This has surely not changed; I expect it's
gotten much worse. (I think Carl Schwarz has published statistics
to this effect, and could certainly contribute some hard facts to
this discussion.) In effect, the worth of the job of university
professor is much less today, relative to other jobs, than it was
when I started. This is a very long term trend (and not limited to
university professors). If that doesn't bother you, then you don't
have to worry about the base of the salary scales.
University management (not just at SFU) chose to address this
issue with salary differentials and retention awards. They pay
more (in some cases, much more) based on whether the skill set of
the individual is more in demand in private industry. Note this is
NOT based on any attribute of the job of university professor.
It's based on inability to attract people away from private
industry, which has an entirely different perspective on the
relative worth of our respective areas of expertise. It's also a
classic example of divide-and-conquer. Faculty offered top-ups are
less likely to be vocal advocates of raising the base of the
salary scale, particularly if it lessens their own top-up. (I'm
all right, Jack!) At this point, 60% of us (Neil's figure) are
receiving some sort of top-up. Much of this is NOT grounded in the
relative demands of our jobs but purely on the cost of hiring us
away from private industry. I'll note that I'm in a department
(computing) with substantial differential.
It's an interesting question to ponder whether this is good or
bad. Would private industry step up to teach certain disciplines
if universities said `Hey, we won't/can't pay that?' The security
and freedom of a tenured university professorship is surely worth
something compared to the insecurity of private industry. One can
argue that universities should never have started down this path.
Universities not constrained by inadequate funding and gov't
control (private and/or possessing big endowments) were also able
to pay more to attract top faculty with demonstrated superior
skill in research and teaching. In my view, this is legitimate
(within reason). This is salary differential based on skills that
ARE relevant to the job of university professor.
JD cites stats presented at the forum that mention salary
compression. In my view, this is not a problem *provided* that
we're pulling the bottom up, not pulling the top down. One of the
things that's always baffled me in these arguments is the
immediate leap to the notion that we need to pull down the ones on
top, rather than lift up the ones on the bottom. It sort of cedes
victory to management, which will always plead poverty and lack of
competitiveness. It distracts from what I see as the real failing:
An unwillingness to take on the much more difficult task of
confronting the provincial and federal governments over funding
priorities, and making the public aware of the long-term damage
that's being done by underfunding.
There are lots of nuances, but this is too long already.
Have at it, folks. There must surely be other opinions.
Lou
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