... in terms of the contract.
I suppose the good news is that they are adopting the same language as the last contract -- except, we don't get our 'step' raises.
So -- once again, those hired this year and next will be evaluated and placed on the salary scale at or above the level of folks who are here and have been here for 6-9 years.
This is how it works -- (this isn't my case... ) Say, I've been here for 6 years and am current at step 6. This came about because the credit for my experience was limited by contract --- so, if I had 10 years experience coming in, I'm put at step 4 and have had two step increases.
Someone hired under the new language -- in the past few years and the newly agreed upon contract has 10 years and is placed on step 10. They're now 4 steps ahead of me and will be until they max out. It is also the case that I have 16 years of experience while they only have 10.
In essence, every time we've had a contract that didn't include step-increases -- those years effectively don't count toward experience / money. BUT, doing the same work outside the system is counted.
The earning differences are huge and quite un-fair.
It's also the case that the union leadership is maxed out on the salary scale and don't really care.
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Salary compression stinks, and it's a huge issue at my institution as well, and we're not unionized (because it would do no good in my state that refuses to negotiate with unions). The only thing for it (as far as I can tell) is for faculty in departments (when raises are available) to try to use their raise pool to rectify it as much as is possible, along side advocating college-wide to rectify the problem. The difficulty in my place is that the administration is all about "merit pay" as opposed to raises that would address this problem, which sucks for those who are pretty much career associates. Personally, I'd advise you to finish that dissertation and go up for full, which should raise your base a step up, if it's anything like at my place. I fully am aiming for full as soon as humanly possible to try to avoid some loss from compression, but that's not guaranteed and the best intentions... blah blah blah.
That said, you've done AWESOME with your diss given your personal circumstances (health and teaching load). Props to you, sister! You should celebrate what you have accomplished thus far!
The problem is that there is no means for review of step placement -- so, the only thing that can happen is to move to a different column.... but, I'm already in the highest paid column -- so, there is no way to fix it even incrementally... especially since our exact salaries are set by contract. I'll get exactly NO raise for defending.
Compounding the problem is that there is no department or division pool of raise money. It's state-wide and negotiated between the union and the state-wide system.
The only way to fix the problem is for the union to insist on an adjustment. The thing is, they won't insist on it because they aren't impacted by it. They haven't had someone hired in with less experience making more money than they do.. it can't happen because they're maxed out.
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