Figure benefits into strike equation
Sacramento Bee 4/1/07
Chances are, a new agreement will be struck in the days ahead. The parties are not that far apart. But it appears that any new contract will be nailed down without a key piece of information that should be part of the discussion: How do California's salaries and benefits compare with those paid in other universities around the country? The professors say they are underpaid, and they cite a state commission study to back them up. That analysis, by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, shows that CSU professors earn about 18 percent less than professors in comparable institutions around the country.
But the study did not look at the value of benefits, which tend to be more generous in California for public employees than they are elsewhere. And as anybody who has ever changed jobs knows, the benefits package can make or break the deal.
California professors earn, on average, $86,000 for a full-time, fully tenured professor, about $72,000 for all tenured or tenure-track professors and $43,000 for a full-time lecturer. The union says that more than half of all CSU faculty members earn less than $50,000 a year. They have had only one cost-of-living raise in the past five years and definitely deserve another.
The professors, however, are seeking a lot more than a cost-of-living raise. They want annual raises totaling 25 percent over four years. They say this is necessary to make up for past losses and bring them to parity with professors elsewhere.
But there is no way to know if that is true without also looking at benefits.
California professors have a choice of three health care plans for which they pay nothing and two others that are modestly priced. They also get health care in retirement. And they are eligible for pensions that give them 2 percent of their salary for every year they work. That's 50 percent of salary for life for a professor who retires at age 55 after 25 years of teaching.
One study commissioned by the university found that the total retirement and savings package was 38 percent more than the median offered by comparable universities. The retiree health benefits were worth 35 percent more than the median, and the health package for working faculty was worth 26 percent more. Despite salaries that are lower than average, the study found, the total compensation package in the CSU was worth 5 percent more than the midpoint of the other schools'.
The state's nonpartisan legislative analyst, meanwhile, said the claim that CSU faculty are underpaid can be "misleading" if benefits aren't included, and the office has urged the Legislature to demand a more complete picture. A neutral fact-finder who reviewed the contract stalemate also suggested that a more complete compensation comparison would be helpful.
But so far, no one close to the situation seems to be listening.
The professors' union, the California Faculty Association, says benefits shouldn't be included, because they are too difficult to measure.
"There are so many variables when you try to make comparisons that it becomes a slippery slope," said John Travis, the union president and a political science professor at Humboldt State University.
Ed Purcell, the union's director of representation, said that since health care and retirement benefits are set by the Legislature, they shouldn't be part of the faculty's collective bargaining negotiations.
"We have no option to bargain for a different retirement system or a different health care system," he said.
And Claudia Keith, a spokeswoman for the university, said her bosses won't push to use a benefits comparison as part of the negotiations.
"Historically we have not compared our compensation that way," she said. "We try to look at the cash comparison."
The situation at the CSU is a microcosm of the problem with state employment negotiations generally. What should matter is how the employees' pay and benefits compare with those of similar employees elsewhere, and whether the state is having trouble retaining the talent it needs with the compensation it offers. The higher cost of living in California should also be factored in, with a recognition that many CSU campuses are in parts of the state where the cost of living is lower than average.
The CSU is the nation's largest four-year university system, and has been one of the most respected. To remain there, it needs to offer salaries and benefits competitive enough to recruit and keep good professors. But when it comes time to negotiate a new contract, the information necessary to explore those questions isn't available.
Instead, the impasse has degenerated into a political power struggle between the faculty and the administration, with students and their families in the middle.
It doesn't have to be this way.