Sunshine List not helpful when addressing dispute
By Lethbridge Herald on March 17, 2022.
Editor:
The Letter to the Editor by A.W. Shier (Lethbridge Herald, 2022-03-10) requires some context. Mr. Shier uses, as the basis of this letter, the University of Lethbridge (UofL) Public Compensation Disclosure List (Public Sector Body Compensation Disclosure | University of Lethbridge (ulethbridge.ca), accessed 2022-03-10), also known as the “Sunshine List.”
Let’s look at the list, isolating for 2020 disclosure figures (the most recent and relevant available) with a specific focus on “compensation” (i.e., salaries (mostly) and taxable benefits) since this is what Mr. Shier focussed on.
As noted on this website, the Sunshine List’s compensation threshold limit for 2020 is $135,317 meaning that salaries for any U of L employee earning less than this amount are not included.
The other observation is that the list also includes administrators and non-academic staff, so by my analysis for 2020 data, only 144 ULFA members were compensated above the threshold in 2020. Within this ULFA subset, the maximum compensation reported is approximately $260,000, the average compensation of those included on the list is approximately $165,000, and the median compensation disclosed is approximately $156,000.
Anyone who read the letter by Dr. Christopher Hopkinson providing details of his life as an academic (Lethbridge Herald, 2022-03-02) can decide if the average (disclosed) compensation is adequate or not given the education requirements and the workload expectations he described.
A more important observation is who does not appear on the Sunshine List.
In fact, the majority of ULFA members are not represented on this list including: the continuing instructors and academic assistants, the sessional instructors (paid by the course, essentially doing academic “piece work”), those academic staff on limited term contracts, those academic staff just starting out in their careers and those in mid-career whose compensation hasn’t reached the threshold.
Not everyone is a mature, accomplished, tenured, full professor credited with multiple decades of teaching and research who is finally earning enough to warrant disclosure of their compensation.
The Sunshine List obfuscates more than it elucidates and is not helpful when trying to understand the U of L labour dispute. Compensation is but one piece of the complicated puzzle being worked through at the UofL. It might be better for readers to look more deeply into the issues before passing judgement.
Leona Jacobs
Lethbridge
13-12
I did ask about the non monetary issues in another letter (53 of them as reported in this paper) but the reply from OpinionisMine was a list does not exist. So how can I form an opinion on these but more important how did the UFLA members determine their vote for a strike without a list and complete understanding of all the issues?? The only logical answer is the salary and benefits issues was the deciding factors in how the faculty voted as stated in the other recent letter by Elwin Smith
If you ever wanted to go down to one of their picket lines and talk to the workers I am sure you could learn a lot more than on here.
I would not vote to go on strike to try and get a 1% increase in salary, but I did vote to go on strike. I would not make that lost salary from the strike back from a 1% increase. I suspect many feel the same way.
There are a lot of other things going on that does not have to do with money, at least in terms of individual compensation. In my personal opinion, the proposed restructuring was one of the big factors that pushed many towards a strike vote.
You write: “So how can I form an opinion on these but more important how did the ULFA members determine their vote for a strike without a list and complete understanding of all the issues??”
My response: It took me about 30 seconds to find ULFA’s Bargaining Update site where there is more than enough information with which for form an informed opinion.
Your “answer” is not logical, rather, it is a faulty inference based on incomplete data. Of course you have the right to express your opinion, but you also have a responsibility to inform yourself first.
My answer was that there is no publicly available list of all the open articles (as far as I know). That does not mean the members do not know what is being discussed.
Leona Jacobs is obviously affiliated with the university looking to sway public opinion and justify the strike. Sorry Ms. Jacobs but looking for fly specks in pepper, going off on tangents doesn’t cut it. Sunshine list is *very* useful and Mr. Shier’s letter hit it on the nail as did the one from Edwin Smith Mar. 17th. The public is tired of the greed and the lack of respect for the students and for the public taxes that pay prof and staff wages. ULFA have robbed students of their education and their hard earned money. Will ULFA repay the students? I hardly think so? How many disgruntled profs will leave to find work elsewhere? Probably none. Where else can they find a gravy train like the one they are use to.
No one goes into education for the money.
What the public is definitely tired of is the greed for power and the lack of respect for students that is shown by the UCP.