February 21, 2006

The 2005-2007 Memorandum of Agreement included statements that the Association would participate in working groups to review the LTSB and Benefits. As part of this continuing process we present the following information for your consideration. Send any questions or comments to the Faculty Association Office, ext 52126 or via e-mail at facassoc@uoguelph.ca.

Average Salary Comparison and 5^th Place

A Joint Ad Hoc Committee, with equal representation from UGFA, is currently reviewing the Long Term Salary and Benefits (LTSB)scheme for Faculty and Librarians. In order to provide appropriate context to the current negotiations, the LTSB Review committee has prepared the following report on how Guelph salaries rank compared to our provincial counterparts.

*The following data has been provided by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) and is based upon Statistics Canada data sets.

Based on age-adjusted data for all Ranks combined for the 2004-05 year, Guelph again ranks 9th overall in Ontario in terms of salary. Below is a table outlining specific figures.

As the table indicates, the differential in dollar terms between the institution currently in 5^th place in Ontario (Trent) and Guelph is $4,729. Guelph’s overall rank (9th place) remains unchanged from 2003-2004, however the differential between 9th place and 5^th place has increased by $1207 (dollar figure for 2003-04 was $3,522). When the data is adjusted for Rank, Guelph salaries compare as follows: Full professor: 11th; Associate professor: 7th; and Assistant professor: 8th.

Faculty Base Salary Survey

The LTSB Review committee has recently prepared and received approval on a set of principles to guidethe work of its members on the Joint Review committee. One of the issues deemed crucial by the committee members is starting salary. In order to further understand Guelph’s position relative to the rest of the Province, a survey of other Ontario Universities’ base starting salaries was completed. For the purposes of this investigation, the base starting salary was defined as the lowest possible salary paid to a tenure track assistant professor (usually referred to as the ’salary floor').

As is evident from the data, Guelph’s position relative to our Ontario peer institutions is seriously disadvantaged as it is the lowest in the province. If it is assumed that most Guelph faculty are hired well above the base, and certainly anecdotal evidence strongly suggests this to be the case, then why not simply raise the salary base to match hiring practice? Moreover, this phenomenon of hiring well above the salary floor for new faculty clearly indicates that the salary scales at the University of Guelph are falling well behind the market for recently graduated faculty and librarians.

Prepared by: UGFA Executive