Merit raises in the works for faculty and non-represented staff
August 22, 2011 •
UC faculty and non-represented staff earning annual salaries of less than $200,000 will be eligible for merit raises under a plan announced Wednesday, Aug. 17, by the Office of the President.
In a letter to system chancellors, President Yudof described the plan as a tool to help campuses recruit and retain faculty, declaring that “university quality cannot be compromised, and our excellent professors and researchers are the fountainhead of that quality.”
Yudof said that nonrepresented staff have not only gone without salary increases for nearly four years but that they have also, in effect, taken pay cuts through last year’s furlough program and this year’s higher benefit contributions. His intention, he said, is to “demonstrate to non-represented staff members that we understand and appreciate how hard they have worked, through difficult times, on behalf of the University of California.”
The plan stems from a November vote by the Board of Regents to provide a pool for merit raises as part of the UC system’s 2011-12 budget. Yudof said the pool would be set at 3 percent of the overall base pay in the eligible categories, adding that the program is designed to give chancellors “the flexibility you need to administer it fairly going forward.”
The plan excludes about 400 members of senior management and those who began work after Jan. 1, 2011, or whose salaries have been adjusted recently as a result of promotions. The letter also notes that “most of our colleagues who are represented by unions, by virtue of existing, negotiated contracts, have received regular pay increases throughout this long-running fiscal crisis.”
Click here to see Yudof’s letter in its entirety.
