While their school consistently ranks in the top-five in nationwide small university rankings, UNBC professors say their salaries are rock bottom compared to faculty at other similar-sized universities.
The UNBC Faculty Association is hoping an arbitrator will help them reverse that trend.
The faculty association filed for arbitration on Nov. 23 and UNBC management agreed to that request. It will be the first time in UNBC's 17-year history an arbitrator will be asked to settle a contract negotiation.
Progress on salary discussions has been painfully slow for Erik Jensen, a UNBC physics professor and vice-president of the non-unionized faculty association.
"We started negotiating in the spring and we pretty much settled the non-monetary issues in October," said Jensen. "On the monetary issues we had full expectation it was going to be tough. We understand the environment.
"The university is rightfully proud of the No. 2 Maclean's ranking for small universities in Canada [released a month ago], but if you use the salary comparators we are well below the [national] average and we go off the bottom of the charts compared to other universities. We're also very proud of our achievement in making a great small university but salaries are becoming a big issue for us. There's ultimately going to be a retention issue because of that."
The faculty association represents about 450 members, including 176 tenured faculty instructors and 204 part-time faculty. The rest are lab instructors, librarians and contract employees. Their two-year contract expired on June 30.
In 2010-11, the average salaries for full-time teachers at UNBC ranged from $105,496 for a full professor, $83,575 for an associate professor, and $71,319 for an assistant professor. By comparison, the University of Lethbridge averaged $143,502 (full professor), $110,084 (associate), and $83,609 (assistant).
"We certainly want our salaries to approach not being so divergent from what faculty make at other places," said Jensen. "The longer we stay at UNBC, the further behind we are compared to other universities."
Of the 176 tenured professors at UNBC, only 67 are full professors and 60 of them are at the first or second rung of the seniority ladder. Most universities in Canada have been around for many decades and because of that, a greater percentage of professors have been at their jobs for longer periods and their salaries have climbed accordingly. According to Rob Van Adrichem, UNBC's vice-president of external relations, that tends to skew the charts and make the UNBC salary situation look worse than it actually is.
"We have a lot of faculty at the start of their ranks," said Van Adrichem.
"It's not common here to hire full professors, but what has been common here, partly because of the age of the institution, is we have hired people at the associate or assistant professor ranks, and then they progress through the ranks based on their things like teaching, their research and their community service.
"We don't have a large number of faculty at that full professor rank, and they are relatively new as full professors. How much the average prof makes depends on what level they are at, how long they've been in those ranks, and how long they've been a scholar."
The average age of UNBC faculty staff is younger than the national average and Van Adrichem says that that also drives down the average salaries.
He realizes pay scales are a major factor in recruitment and retention of faculty staff, but Van Adrichem says UNBC management takes its direction on faculty negotiations from the provincial government and has no control over bargaining mandates .
"We want to reward our faculty for great work as much as we can, but one of the restraints is we are a public entity," said Van Adrichem.
