On Tuesday, 16 May, the MUNFA Negotiating Committee presented a proposal to the administration on Article 31, Salaries and Benefits. The primary goals of the salaries section are retention of current ASMs, recruitment of new ASMs, and the re-establishment of salary equity.
In addition, our proposal addresses three broad factors:
- Depending upon rank, ASM salaries at MUN have fallen behind those of colleagues at similar comprehensive Canadian universities by 10 – 15 %;
- In order to continue to effectively recruit new ASMs, the administration has felt compelled to offer on average 8 additional steps of salary (known as “market differential”) to new ASMs, in addition to the minimum set in Article 31. One can easily conclude from this that our existing salary scale contains insufficient remuneration for today’s academy. The resulting discretionary salary steps have led to many anomalies in salaries among colleagues here at MUN;
- Across the board salary settlements in NL have been constrained by a provincial government salary framework introduced initially by legislation imposed on public sector workers in 2004.
The MUNFA proposal would see salary floors and caps for all ASM ranks rise by 10 steps. Each ASM would thus receive a 10 step adjustment minus up to 10 steps market differential that an ASM may already be receiving. Those ASMs already in receipt of a market differential would see up to 10 of those current steps converted into basic annual salary, and thus protected by the Collective Agreement. In such a way, most ASMs would receive a significant salary scale adjustment, and at the same time, the salary inequity imposed through a decade of discretionary market differential use would be significantly reduced. All ASMs would also receive a fixed percentage across the board salary increase. In the end, most ASMs would receive about a 15 % increase, although it would vary by rank, and by the number of market differential steps currently held.
With that scale adjustment in place, the administration would no longer need to have the current degree of flexibility in discretionary salary. Thus MUNFA has proposed a clause discouraging future market differentials by imposing a “luxury tax.” This tax is a formula creating an equity fund, a pool of money designed to simultaneously penalize the administration for overuse of market differentials, and from which all ASMs would be paid a stipend.
In addition to these proposals on salaries, MUNFA would like to see a significant increase in the Professional Development Expense Reimbursement (PDER), a tuition waiver for dependents of ASMs who attend MUN, a joint committee set up to study the end of mandatory retirement, and language that would see MUNFA jointly control its share of the MUN Pension Plan.
As we indicated in NN#1, we will keep you advised of all future developments.
MUNFA Negotiating Committee:
- Jon Church (Medicine) Chief Negotiator
- George Jenner (Earth Sciences)
- Dorothy Milne (Q.E. II Library)
- Richard Rivkin (Ocean Sciences Centre)
- Lili Wang (Pharmacy)
- Paul Wilson (SWGC)
- Marian Atkinson (MUNFA Executive Officer, non-voting member)
