Great News!

As a result of the recent contract negotiations, the 2007-11 UUP contract will, if ratified, contain an agreement between 'the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations, SUNY, and UUP to meet to discuss and review issues of mutual concern regarding the librarians.'

This agreement is similar to language in Appendix A-31 (Executive Level Review of Salary Issues) of the 2003-7 contract.

This agreement is a great step in the process towards equal treatment for librarians!

Plattsburgh Moves on Equity

Cerise Oberman, Dean of Library & Information Services at SUNY Plattsburgh, is allowing me to post the following information from her:

"A serious effort of addressing the salary inequity issue of librarians started two years ago. The Deans’ Cabinet (comprised of the Provost & Assistant VP for Academic Affairs, 2 Associate Provosts, and 4 Deans) conducted a regression analysis of all academic salaries in the four academic units: Arts & Science, Business & Economics, Education, Health & Human Services, and the Library. The intent was to use this data to guide equity adjustments with available Discretionary Funds. The resulting data clearly and strikingly (no surprise here) revealed that librarians, regardless of rank and years of service, were severely shortchanged when their 12 month salaries were compared to the salaries of 10 month Arts & Science faculty. (The Arts & Science faculty salaries are most comparable to librarian salaries.) In fact, librarians’ 12 month salaries were often less than a comparable 10 month A&S faculty member. Faced with the gaping disparity, the Deans’ Cabinet agreed to take a lump sum of $10,000 off the top of the entire pool of Discretionary Funds to begin to address the librarian salary problem. This process was repeated this past year—again a regression analysis was completed on all academic salaries by academic division. While the librarians fared better this year, there were many still not reaching the 10 month mark. So once again, $10,000 was taken from the top of the Discretionary Funds for the purpose of addressing librarian equity issues. This year was a watershed: all librarians are now earning comparable 10 month salaries compared to Arts & Science faculty and several librarians have surpassed that mark.

Some caveats:

1. While the gap is shrinking, it will take several more years of specially allocated Discretionary Funds to close the gap.


2. Support of the other Deans was critical in making this possible, since they essentially agreed to provide my division with a share of their discretionary funds.


3. Equity adjustments did not replace merit awards for librarians.


4. Hiring new librarians presents a bit of a challenge since starting salaries need to be at a higher rate than a 10 month academic hire."

Thank you, Cerise!

Albany Librarians Pass Resolution

Dan McShane passed along this recent resolution of the Albany Library Faculty:

"A Resolution in Support of the SUNYLA Ad Hoc Equity Committee Efforts to Achieve Equity for Librarians

Whereas, SUNY Albany librarians are concerned about apparent inequities between library and classroom faculty, and agree in principle with the statements put forth in the SUNYLA Ad Hoc Equity Committee’s Resolution in Support of Equity;

Whereas, Such support called for equal treatment as to academic year obligations, equal compensation, and additional remuneration for service beyond the academic year;

Whereas, Such faculty status still does not include contract year obligations equal to those of classroom faculty, regardless of similarities in appointment, service, scholarship, promotion, and review; and

Whereas, Such faculty status still does not include equal rates of compensation, with individual discrepancies in the many thousands of dollars; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the faculty of the University at Albany support the SUNYLA Ad Hoc Equity Committee’s efforts to address inequities between librarians and classroom faculty."

Great work, Albany!

Potsdam Begins Equity Move

As reported by Marianne Hebert at the March 2007 SUNYLA meeting, SUNY Potsdam's UUP has been looking at the issue of librarian salaries as part of a campus wide salary enhancement initiative. The SUNY Potsdam UUP chapter initially asked library faculty to provide comparison salary data for other SUNY librarians or librarians nationwide. The SUNY Potsdam librarians successfully argued that librarians be included in the formula being used for classroom faculty, citing the “Call for Equity” campaign. Potsdam UUP will be forwarding a salary enhancement proposal that includes academic faculty and professional staff to the campus administration sometime this spring.

The sunyequity blog will report updates on Potsdam's progress.

Way to go, Potsdam!

Letter to our Academic VP

Here is the text of the letter we recently sent to our Vice President of Academic Affairs.

We met with her today and had a good first meeting. We're going to try to put together some information for her on solutions and meet again in March. She's very supportive, but our budget situation here at SUNYIT is dire.

Here's the letter:

TO: DR. ROSEMARY MULLICK
FROM: JACKIE COUGHLAN RON FOSTER BARBARA GRIMES NANCY KAISER
DATE: JANUARY 24, 2007
RE: LIBRARIANS' ISSUES

Dear Dr. Mullick:

We would like to request a meeting to discuss salary and contract year equity at SUNYIT.
The librarians are the lowest paid faculty at SUNYIT. Three of us rank in the bottom one thirteenth of all faculty. That is, twelve thirteenths of the classroom faculty are paid more than us, even though they work 10 month contracts while we work 12 month contracts. When classroom faculty's salaries are annualized, the three of us rank in the bottom one twenty-fourth: 96% of classroom faculty are above us.

These issues are not unique to SUNYIT. Statewide, the SUNY Librarians Association has written a report, Equity: A Call to Action, and unanimously passed an equity resolution endorsing the report and calling for redress. These materials were sent to Chancellor Ryan over the summer, and they are attached here for you, as is the Chancellor’s response.

The Chancellor noted: “With regard to salaries, the University is unique amongst unionized entities in having reserved authority to each campus president to determine salaries (at or above the minimum for rank) at the time of hire and to provide salary increases at any time thereafter. There is essentially no upper limitation on salary.” Elsewhere, SUNY Farmingdale and SUNY Plattsburgh are working on these issues, and we have information on this we can provide.

Individually, we are also paid much less than colleagues at the other comprehensive colleges. Ron has specific data on this he can provide you. On average, we are paid about $10,000 less when compared with peers by salary-per-years of experience. This compensation is incompatible with our performance: for example, in a recent survey, the Library ranked first in service and first in resources for the entire campus and ranked at the top amongst the comprehensive campuses' libraries.

While we are aware that the UUP is beginning negotiations with the state, we still request a meeting to discuss these issues and hopefully begin a process of communication and information-sharing. According to surveys, we're good at that.

Handout for SUNYIT Luncheon

Here are tiny, illegible images of the front and back of a handout I made for our upcoming meeting with the UUP Negotiating Team. A copy of the handout is available here. The handout is on 11x17 paper.

The front page is SUNYIT's "List of Currently Active Staff October 2006." I got this information from our college business office in Excel. I removed people's names, sorted the file by ascending salary, and highlighted the librarians. This side actually ends up being the inside of the handout. The yellow highlighting prints out a light grey, so it is okay.



The back page is two tables I made:
1. The Cost of Librarian Salary Equity at SUNYIT
2. The Cost of Equity between SUNYIT & SUNY Librarians by Years of Experience



I made the first table using the "List of Currently Active Staff October 2006." It compares the salaries of librarians to those of classroom faculty, and it presents how much equity and real equity (salary equity & contract year equity) would cost at SUNYIT.

I made the second table using raw data I have from the 2006 SUNYLA Salary Survey. It presents some good information on SUNY salary averages by years of experience; I don't think these data are available anywhere else. The table compares SUNYIT figures to SUNY figures.

When the handout is folded in half the second table ends up being the cover, the first table ends up being the back, and the front page ends up being inside.

The Cost of Equity

Here's a brief report on the cost of equity.

The report has seven tables:

1. The cost of librarian salary equity at SUNYIT


2. The cost of librarian salary equity, by cohort


3. Table 19: Number and average salaries of ARL university librarians by years of experience and sex, fy 2005-06


4. Number and average salaries of SUNY librarians by years of experience and sex, spring 2006


5. The cost of equity between SUNY & ARL university librarians by years of experience


6. The cost of equity between SUNY & SUNYIT librarians by years of experience


7. The cost of equity between SUNYIT & ARL librarians by years of experience

Please let me know if you spot something wrong.

Unofficial Talking Points

Here are some talking points previously sent to sunyla-l:

SUNYLA and SUNY librarians believe several inequities exist between the way SUNY treats its classroom faculty and the way SUNY treats its library faculty. We ask UUP to raise our concerns with SUNY during its upcoming contract negotiations.

1. According to SUNY figures, there are salary inequities between classroom and library faculty. For example, the relevant average 12-month salaries at the Comprehensive Colleges are:

Assistant Librarian, $39,331
Instructor, $55,038

Senior Assistant Librarian, $44,160
Assistant Professor, $58,985

Associate Librarian, $55,149
Associate Professor, $75,877

Librarian, $65,522
Professor, $89,601

Average 10-month salaries are:
Instructor, $40,164
Assistant Professor, $50,817
Associate Professor, $60,340
Professor, $73,162

What is UUP’s opinion on the salary disparities between classroom and library faculty?

2. The terminal degree for librarians is the master’s degree. Are librarians financially penalized for being non-Ph.D. faculty? Aren’t librarians faculty when it comes to university service?

3. According to SUNY figures, there are contract year inequities between classroom and library faculty. There are 134 librarians at the Comprehensive Colleges; four have 10-month contracts. There are 2,852 classroom faculty at the Comprehensive Colleges, and 2,669 have 10-month contracts. Is this situation a result only of how librarian jobs are advertised and filled?

Library faculty are evaluated by the same Board of Trustees’ criteria for appointment and promotion. We need time to prepare, to train, to read, to research, to explore, and to rejuvenate, just like classroom faculty. Does UUP agree?

4. Other inequities exist. Contract year inequities compound salary inequities: the disparities are actually greater since librarians work longer contracts. There are differences between the salaries of male and female librarians: there are fewer male librarians, but they are paid more. There are differences between the salaries of white and non-white librarians: there are disproportionately fewer non-white librarians, and they are paid less. There are differences between the rates at which library administrators’ salaries increased and the rates at which librarians’ salaries increased: administrators, who naturally earn more, also enjoyed higher rates of increases than others. Can UUP help us determine why such disparities exist and what together we can do about them?