The United Faculty of Western Washington and Western’s administration have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will give $256,858 in salary increases to 91 faculty members. These increases begin to address the problem of salary compression in which the salaries of Western’s recently-hired faculty members have encroached on those of longer serving faculty members.
In the 2005-07 budget, President Morse earmarked $250,000 to begin to address equity and compression in faculty salaries. A study by the firm of Hagniere, Inc. concluded that Western has no structural salary inequity based on race or gender but suffers from a significant level of salary compression. A committee was formed to make recommendations regarding compression. Members of this committee included Sue Guenter-Schlesinger, EOC Director; Paula Rustan, Director of University Budget and Planning; Cheryl Wolf-Lee, Interim Director of Human Resources; Sharon Schmidtz, Assistant Director of Institutional Research; Bill Lyne, English Department and UFWW President; Ira Hyman, Psychology Department; and Paul Storer, Economics Department.
The committee discussed a wide range of options for addressing salary compression, a problem created largely by the cumulative impact of inadequate cots-of-living and merit increases such that the salaries of many long-serving faculty members do not keep pace with those of recently-hired faculty or peers with similar years of service at comparable institutions. As an initial step in addressing compression, the committee recommended adjustments for those full or associate professors more than 10% below the national average for faculty in comparable institutions and disciplines with the same number of years in rank. For each eligible faculty member, the committee recommended an increase of the least half-step increment required to get his/her salary to less than 10% behind his/her comparison-group average. Since available funds were limited, the committee recommended a maximum 2.0 step increase for the qualifying group of full professors and a maximum 1.5 step increase for the qualifying group of associate professors. For example, if a full professor’s salary was such that a half step increase would bring that salary to less than 10% below their average salary, then that professor was recommended for a half step increase; or if a 3.0 step increase was required, then a 2.0 step increase was recommended. Faculty not eligible included those with more than one missed or failed merit review, those not returning to teach in either Fall 2007 or Winter 2008.
Each of the faculty members receiving increases will be notified individually, and each of the increases will be retroactive to September 2006. On August 25, each of the affected faculty members will receive a lump sum payment equal to the value of the salary increase for academic year 2006-07, minus appropriate deductions.
Each steward can obtain a full explanation of the committee methodology and a list of the affected faculty members in the steward’s department from UFWW Chief Steward Steven Garfinkle.
President Morse is to be commended both for the lack of race and gender inequity at Western and for committing the funds to begin to address faculty salary compression at Western. This is a good start, but it is just a start. Faculty salaries must continue to be the top priority at Western and UFWW is fully committed to working with the administration on this issue.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Bill Lyne or Steven Garfinkle.