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Salaries

Getting salary information | Starting salaries & raises | Salary comparisons in YUFA | Pay inequities in YUFA | Other pay besides your York base salary

Getting salary information

How do I get information about York's salaries?

There are four formal mechanisms members can use to compare their salaries with others':

1. CAUT and OCUFA provide annual Statistics Canada tabulations of salaries at Canadian universities by age, sex, and rank. For example, see YUFA Salary Trends & Housing Costs (Excel).
2. The Ontario Government publishes an annual list of public employees earning $100,000 or more on its Public Sector Salary Disclosure Website.
3. The Employer is required to send out consent forms for the Salary Disclosure list. Provided you've signed the form, this list is available from your Dean / Principal / University Librarian. Once you've signed, you need not do so again.
4. Finally, the Employer is required to provide YUFA with salary data, on the condition that they not be 'disclosed or used in a way which would directly or indirectly disclose information about individuals'. In the analyses that follows, we present aggregate statistics, rounding off so that individuals' salaries can't be identified.

How do my pay and cost of living compare with those of colleagues at other Ontario universities?

In 2007/08, the most recent date for which extensive comparison data are available, the youngest YUFA members had salaries ranking 7th in the province, while the oldest had salaries in 13th place. At the same time, Toronto's housing prices far exceed those in other Ontario university towns. For details, see YUFA Salary Trends & Housing Costs (Excel).

For the national picture, see the 'Academic Staff' section of the CAUT Almanac.

Starting salaries & raises

How are starting salaries determined?

Starting salaries are set in individual negotiations with Deans / Principal / University Librarian, who are constrained only by salary 'floors', i.e., minimum salaries for each rank. Management offers are usually well above these 'floors' and instead appear based on factors such as existing departmental salaries, management style, and perceptions of appointees' professional experience, achievement, and bargaining leverage.

How can I help incoming YUFA members negotiate fair salaries?

• Encourage them to contact YUFA for assistance and refer them to Information for People Offered Tenure-Track Appointments in YUFA.
• Provide them with YUFA Salary Trends & Housing Costs (Excel) and with the information given here. Salary figures may be a year or two old and should be adjusted to reflect subsequent settlements of 3% in May 2010, 2.5% in May 2011.
• Share the following 2008 and 2009 info about typical starting salaries of Assistant Professors, which should again be adjusted to reflect subsequent settlements.

How does my salary grow?

1. Collective bargaining

As your bargaining agent, YUFA negotiates with the Employer about salaries. YUFA has two salary goals: (1) to secure raises that are fair in light of YUFA Salary Trends & Housing Costs (Excel); and (2) to ensure that raises are distributed equitably and benefit as many members as possible.

Here's what YUFA routinely bargains for you:

• Progress-through-the-Ranks (PTR) - If you’ve been in YUFA for at least 4 months and will continue into the Fall, in May you get a ‘PTR’ increment. The PTR is $2700. This is the key to our seniority-based salary structure.
• Percentage / 'across-the-board' increases - These also apply to continuing members who’ve been in YUFA for at least 4 months. They are calculated on the basis of current salaries. The current Collective Agreement includes raises of 3% on 1 May 2009, 3% on 1 May 2010, and 2.5% on 1 May 2011.
• Promotion raises - Upon promotion to Associate, you'll get a raise of one PTR. New in the 2009-12 Collective Agreement, the raise for promotion to Full, is two PTRs.

2. Management discretion

The Employer's objectives in bargaining have been to minimise costs and to increase management discretion in distributing raises to individuals.

The Collective Agreement permits management discretion in giving certain raises to individual members, as well as various kinds of one-time-only payments such as merit bonuses, extra sabbatical pay, and release time. In the 2009-12 Collective Agreement, the substantial raises are:

• Marketability raises - a total of $210,000 in raises in each of 2009/10, 2010/11, and 2011/12,
• Anomalies / marketability raises - the option to give up to $367,898 per year in 'marketability / anomalies' raises from existing budgets in each of 2009/10, 2010/11, and 2011/12,
• Merit bonuses - $725,000 awarded by the VP Academic to 325 YUFA members in each of 2009/10, 2010/11, and 2011/12. These bonuses are 'one-time-only', i.e., they do not form part of the selected members' ongoing base salaries.

Salary comparisons in YUFA

In the following tables, we show 2009/10 salary statistics for each Faculty, department / division, and rank / classification. We break these down by age for two main reasons: 

1. YUFA members in some units tend to be much younger than in others and thus to have lower salaries. For example, librarians appear to have a very low median salary, but taking into account that they are on average nearly five years younger than other YUFA members, their salaries are unexceptional.
2. YUFA's Collective Agreement sets out what's primarily a seniority-based salary structure, i.e., most raises and increments are distributed annually to everyone. It has been YUFA's position that 'professional experience' should be the strongest determinant of members' salaries. In the absence of professional experience data, age is used as a substitute. (The two are strongly correlated: r=0.94 in 1999 for age and the professional experience measure used in the pay equity and salary adjustment processes.)

How do salaries in different Faculties compare?

Table 1. YUFA salary statistics for Faculties and the Libraries in July 2009, by age group

Schulich has the highest median salaries in every age group, with Science more often than not coming in second. Education and Glendon salaries tend to be lower. But as we see in the discussion of the next table, the picture is more complex, since the salaries paid to different departments within Faculties can vary greatly.

How do salaries in different departments / units compare?

Table 2. Mean YUFA salaries by department in July 2009

We identified the highest- and lowest-paid units relative to the age-salary line for all units with at least four members.

What do these highest-paid units have in common? With the exception of the two Glendon departments, management has negotiated for faculty in them to receive higher salaries due to 'marketability' concerns. Members of such units received a relatively high proportion of raises from salary adjustment and marketability funds.

The 2009-2010 CAUT Almanac indicates that faculty members at Canadian universities who are in similar disciplines - especially Commerce / Management / Business Administration and, to a lesser extent, Computer Science - are better-paid than faculty members in most other disciplines. CAUT also reports better pay in some additional disciplines, specifically Engineering and Economics, that do not number among YUFA's better-paid. Our chief observation from the CAUT Almanac is that the interdisciplinary pay gaps that it reports are far smaller than what YUFA members are experiencing.

What do these lowest-paid units have in common? Glendon International Studies, FSE Natural Science, and LA&PS Writing Department have quite high proportions of faculty in the Alternate Stream or who hold Contractually Limited Appointments (CLAs) or Special Renewable Contracts (SRCs); as discussed below, these groups of faculty are comparatively ill-paid. We could not come up with any explanation for the low pay in the remaining departments.

Finally, it's dismaying to find that the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid units continues to grow:

How do salaries vary by rank, stream, and appointment category?

Table 3. Median YUFA salaries by classification / stream in July 2009, by age group

This table offers a closer look at the salaries of Alternate Stream members, and those with Contractually Limited Appointments (CLAs) and Special Renewable Contracts (SRCs). Compared to YUFA members with professorial continuing appointments, each of these groups fares very poorly. Worst off are CLAs and SRCs, whose salaries don't seem to reflect their professional experience.

Members of the Alternate Stream, whose professional responsibilities encompass teaching and service, are paid about ten percent less on average than their Professorial Stream peers. The Collective Agreement permits these appointments only in specified units.

Those in the Professorial Stream are the best paid. Here, rank matters more than the Collective Agreement can explain.

Professional librarians' salaries compare favourably with those at other Canadian universities. They have benefited greatly from activism in YUFA and particularly from their pay equity settlement.

Pay inequities in YUFA

What factors work against a fair pay structure at York?

The tables above depict a salary structure that is quite inequitable. While collective agreements at several universities have 'salary grids' setting out explicit criteria for starting and continuing salaries, YUFA's Collective Agreement permits management to distribute too many salary dollars at its discretion. Key factors working against a fair and open pay structure are:

• Salary 'floors', intended to establish meaningful minimum salaries, haven't kept pace with the cost of living and starting salaries elsewhere.
• Management has near-total control over the initial salary offers to incoming members. The pay structure fails to correct many anomalous starting salaries.
• Incoming members often lack the knowledge and bargaining power necessary to negotiate effectively.
• As noted above, management has discretion over $210,000 per year for 'marketability' raises, and can give up to $367,898 per year in 'marketability / anomalies' raises.
• In 1998 and 1999, the Employer insisted on the 'market' segmentation of YUFA salaries as a condition of paying out Salary Adjustment raises. Business, Computer Science, and Economics were designated as disciplines with 'market-related concerns' requiring such raises, even though they were already better paid than others.
• Systematic inequities include: institutionalised sexism; discounting of prior professional experience, particularly of former contract faculty, educators and health care professionals; devaluation of teaching and service, which particularly affects the Alternate Stream and SRCs; and exploitation of those with insecure employment, specifically, CLAs and SRCs. YUFA has heard concerns that salaries may also be affected by institutionalised racism; regrettably, the Employer doesn't provide the relevant data.

How did the pay equity settlement affect the gender gap in salaries?

The 1997-98 pay equity settlement had given women faculty $1.1 million to reduce the gap between them and male faculty of comparable age and professional experience. These raises went some distance toward making salaries more rational, but gender gaps in salaries have been widening again.

Table 4. Trends in median YUFA salaries for males and females in 1996/97 - 2009/10, by age group

The recapture agreement concluded in 2008. (According to this agreement, as women faculty who received pay equity raises retired or left York, their raises were redistributed among remaining women who were eligible.)

However, the librarians' pay equity review continues. In this process, every three years, librarians' salaries are reviewed to determine whether they still comply with the librarian pay equity settlement. If not, individual librarians receive additional raises. (Unlike faculty, librarians qualified as a 'female job class' under the Pay Equity Act.)

What happened with the Employment Standards Act grievance?

In January 2000, a group of women faculty had filed grievances under the Employment Standards Act 'equal pay for equal work' provisions, alleging that they were inequitably paid relative to male comparators. In August 2008, these women received a mediated settlement.

What can I do if I think I'm unfairly paid?

• Build your case by consulting the salary disclosure list and YUFA to see where you stand (see above).
• Ask your Dean / Principal / University Librarian how to apply for a 'marketability' or 'anomaly' raise.

Other pay besides your York base salary

If I hold an administrative position, such as director or co-ordinator, am I eligible for a stipend and / or release time?

First, look at Appendix P, which sets forth the stipends and minimum release time entitlements for each category of administrator (e.g., Chair of large department, Director of small graduate program, Head of Frost Library). To see the July 2001 PDF document identifying 'small', 'medium', and 'large' units, click here. In the 2009 Collective Agreement, it was decided that this document was to be reviewed in JCOAA.

If Appendix P lists your position, you're entitled. Otherwise, if an analogous position is on the list, then you may be eligible and should approach your Dean / Principal / University Librarian.

What's the pay if I teach on overload?

If you're a Course Director for a full course, you will receive $9,000 (in most departments). Please click here for more info.

Who gets the proceeds from my copyrighted work?

According to clause 23.02, you have copyright of all of your written, artistic and recorded works. If the Employer directly funded the work (e.g., by allocating staff, equipment, or funds other than your salary), the proceeds are to be divided with it until its direct costs have been met.

If I have an income from a source other than the University, is that okay?

Under certain circumstances, yes. But you must be mindful of three conditions:

1. You may be required to report the scope of your outside professional activities to the Employer. If such activities use University facilities, supplies, or services, you must secure advance permission from the Employer and come to agreement about reimbursement. For more about 'outside professional activities', click here.
2. If you're on sabbatical, you're required to report all 'non-trivial' income from outside sources. Should your sabbatical income exceed 100% of your normal base salary plus a reasonable allowance for research and travel expenses, your sabbatical support from York may be correspondingly reduced.
3. If you hold a full-time faculty or librarian position at another post-secondary institution, the Employer has taken the position that this constitutes cause for dismissal under clause15.03.

More info?

• Your Collective Agreement, Article 8 (information), clauses 12.02 (ranks), 15.03 (dismissal for cause), 18.04 (outside professional activities), 20.07 & 20.12 (sabbatical salaries), 23.02 (copyright), Article 25 (compensation), and Appendices C (additional compensation), E (pay equity), M (merit) and P (stipends and release time).
• Effects of Salary Adjustment
• Employer's Request for CV and Statement of Outside Activities
• FAQs: Pay Statements
• Information for People Offered Tenure-Track Appointments in YUFA
• July 2001 Document re Unit Size
• YUFA Salary Trends & Housing Costs (Excel)

Version: March 2010