Volume 30, No. 5 Editor: Bob Rupert May, 2000. TWO SIDES OF THE SALARY RATIONALIZATION ISSUE Carleton's faculty rationalization process ageist...unwise...unfair to those shorter in the tooth' I want to make a few points about Carleton's current salary scale. To start off, let me be clear: I think long service should be rewarded. But, first, seniority shouldn't be the only determinant of one's salary; and, second, the current system doesn't even manage to reward years of service to Carleton. What it rewards, above all else, is age -- in the guise of "years from first degree". The current age-based system is both unfair, and unwise. It is unfair to those who happen to be shorter in the tooth, but who have outstanding professional achievements, including extraordinary contributions to Carleton. If the salary scale were based on height, it would be deemed absurd; if it were based on gender or race, it would be deemed illegal. But somehow Carleton continues to have a system in which the key determinate in salary is the year of one's birth. (Again, thinly disguised as "year in which the B.A. was awarded".) My own case illustrates the point, though I'm far from alone. I have five books authored or edited from major presses; I have published 20 journal articles (in top journals); I have received a research achievement award from Carleton, and a large SSHRC grant. In addition, I have very high teaching scores and tons of service at all levels over seven years. Yet my salary is almost precisely what it would have been if I had merely done the absolute minimum required. This situation obtains precisely because, given Carleton's unjust system, my salary is determined by when I finished my B.A. -- which was, in its turn, (mostly) determined by when I was born. Fairness aside, the current salary scale is likely to hurt Carleton's ability to retain faculty. The only way to achieve a credible increase in salary is: a) to get older more quickly; b) to get promoted early; c) to go into senior administration; or, d) to get an offer from another university. Accelerated aging is metaphysically impossible. Early promotion takes away the strongest bargaining chip an individual faculty member has -- namely, the power to leave if things go badly here. (This because most job openings are at the lower ranks, and most universities will not hire someone into a rank lower than what they currently hold.) Senior administrative positions are only available to a limited few; and besides, we don't want all of the University's best teachers and researchers to leave those callings behind. In the end, then, for most people the only viable way to achieve a significant raise around here is to try to leave. This is terrible. Carleton is encouraging its most productive people to seek other jobs! Note too that, even if people start out with the intention of staying at Carleton, all the while applying hither and yon, intentions can quickly shift. Everyone is on their best behavior at the interview, the candidate is flattered by the attention and feeling resentful about how little Carleton is paying. This can lead people to simply accept the offer, when it comes. To sum up, the current ageist system is not only unjust, it also is likely to have unhappy practical consequences. Please revisit this issue in negotiations. Robert Stainton, Associate Professor, Philosophy and SLALS Salary Rationalization neither perfect' nor ageist', incoming rate main determinant', but can be reviewed The major determinant of faculty salaries is the initial hiring rate--the salary a person negotiates for himself or herself. It is neither age nor years of service. Those with long service have benefitted from scale increases and (subject to adequate performance) most will have received Career Development Increments (the mechanism for taking people beyond the floor). Additionally, they may have benefitted from market forces at the time they were hired (shortage of academics). Thus, most who have been at Carleton longer have higher salaries than recent hires unless the incoming member bargains a high initial salary. For example, new faculty are currently being hired in Engineering at higher salaries than older faculty make. The hiring salary is based primarily on qualifications, market forces and the faculty's budget. The winners in this process are those who are better at negotiating a salary or do so under more favourable conditions. But salaries can and sometimes are later reviewed in a non-grievable process called salary rationalization (see Appendix E of the collective agreement.). In the mid-70's, Professor Norma Bowen (Guelph) ran a 91 variable salary review (based on merit factors) but found that almost the same results were obtained using one variable instead - age. In 1980, age became a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Charter. That's when we chose years-since-first-degree as our measurement to look at anomalously high or low salaries. CUASA members seeking salary adjustment must base the request on inequity, special merit, market differential (a concept adopted in 1975 when faculty in Engineering insisted their salaries not be pegged to academic salaries but to the marketplace) or alternate employment offers. The approach for inequity is: had you been hired eight years after your first degree (with a completed Ph.D) at the salary floor of Assistant Professor rank, and performed reasonably well, your salary would be X'. The salary is then compared to other salaries in the department. If other salaries also are low--this can happen where there is heavy supply and low demand for people in that discipline (market forces can also work that way)--an increase may not be granted (or vice versa if all the salaries are high). But if the salary is clearly low compared to others, an "inequity" is seen to exist and the salary may be raised. A more-detailed annual review of every nuance of every curriculum vitae would be extremely expensive and time consuming. There may be a better way to make comparative salaries fair. But until we can find one--one the employer will agree with--we continue to work with the existing process. And many CUASA members have benefitted from it. Bob Rupert. Editor