That was the message Wednesday when the UMMAP bargaining team presented the outline of our salary presentation to University of Michigan leadership at the bargaining table.
Our employer is profitable and has significant reserves, and yet employees have worked under low and stagnant wages. Other unions have secured strong contracts in recent years, and we expect to be treated the same. The time is now for leadership to pay us what we’re worth.
Our Salary Vision
The goal Wednesday was to begin conversations about our salary vision, one that rewards time on the job and prior experience, and takes certification and advanced degrees into account. We will present more details and share stories about our wages on July 24. (Members are encouraged to attend. If you are available RSVP here.)
Management had little response to our salary presentation, and we expect their initial wage offer will be insignificant, if not insulting. It’s up to us to put pressure on management to take us seriously.
You can play a role in that. On July 29, from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., UMMAP and SEIU members will hold a combined informational picket at the Taubman Center at the University Hospital, to show the bosses that we mean business. To register, fill out this form.
Fair Compensation
Salary is important for UMMAP members for two main reasons, UMMAP’s lead negotiator, Jon Curtiss said at the table. It’s how we pay our mortgages or rent, put food on the table for our kids, or pay for vacations. AndBut there’s also an emotional component. “It’s about how valuable you feel from your employer, the respect you feel at where you work, and the sense of fairness and dignity on the job,” Curtiss said.
We presented UM leadership data that shows the purchasing power for most job categories has actually decreased since 2011, as raises have not kept pace with inflation.
And we presented data that illustrates the problem of salary compression. Market adjustments have largely only benefited relatively new hires, while longtime staff were given raises below inflation, meaning some people with 20 years experience make the same as people with 1 or 2 years on the job.
For example, an employee with 17 years of service saw colleagues with only a year of service get 22 percent raises, while they received a 1.5 percent raise. “It was a slap in the face and just shows how much they don’t care or value their staff. I want them to right that wrong,” the member said.
This, Curtiss said, is what we’ve heard over and over again, that UMMAP members don’t feel valued by the university. We shared data with management that showed the vast majority of staff view the current pay system, largely tied to performance evaluations, as unfair; this is a sentiment shared across all six UMMAP units.
Our Presentation
In our presentation, a number of job categories that are currently the lowest paid positions will see significant increases. We propose that no UMMAP position should pay less than $45,000 a year. (To see our presentation follow this link: UMMAP Salary Presentation.)
Our presentation also calls for a correlation between years of service and pay. The longer you work in a position, the higher your pay should be. This creates transparency and eliminates favoritism and unconscious bias. “We want to eliminate that possibility of someone’s salary being impacted by their race, their gender, or their sexuality,” Curtiss said.
We pointed out to management that they have reached agreement with other unions in recent years that have included large raises, including the recent nurses’ contract which had 22.5 percent salary increases over four years, along with a $5,000 signing bonus and elimination of mandatory overtime.
“What we hope and we expect is that we can reach an agreement that’s along the lines of the agreements that other unions have reached,” Curtiss told managers. “Our expectation is that we will land in that place or higher.”
Since our union includes so many job categories, our full salary proposal is nuanced and flexible, in an attempt to meet the needs of all members. If you have a story to share about your wages, you can share your testimonial here: UMMAP Testimonials.