Ann Markusen: University undervalues its striking employees

In labor markets, economists theorize that employers reward productivity gains with wage and salary increments that also cover inflation. This year, the University of Minnesota won funds from the Legislature for an overall 3.25 percent annual salary increment. U administrators awarded faculty and other professional employees raises of 3.25 percent and higher. Left to the last, the clerical and technical workers were offered only 2.25 percent and health-care workers 2.5 percent, not even enough to counter rising costs of living.

The university contends publicly that its offer is 4.25 percent, a figure achieved by folding in the normal step increases to which workers are entitled. Step hikes reward productivity gains that come with experience. They encourage and reward longevity, saving the university considerable training and ramp-up costs from turnover. The equivalents of step increases for faculty members -- the large salary jumps involved in moving from assistant to associate to full professor -- are not computed into annual increases. Gov. Tim Pawlenty agreed to raises of 3.25 percent in addition to step increases for state employees. The 4.25 percent claim is misleading and disingenuous.

The university's resistance sends the message to our support staff that their skills and commitment are not valued and that they are replaceable. Most faculty and professional workers on campus understand the key role that clerical, technical and health-care colleagues play in advising students and solving problems; in time-dependent grant and payroll work, and in events operations, alumni interface, patient care, technology monitoring, bill paying and much more. They have had to learn and implement many new technology systems. Their institutional memory, knowledge of university rules and procedures, and networks of relationships inside and outside the university are central to the viability of our educational, research and outreach activities. They deserve a productivity increase comparable to that given to the rest of us.

It is highly debatable that the striking workers are more expendable than faculty members. Faculty members have no better teaching options in our region. Only a few can command offers from elsewhere, and some of them stay here anyway for family reasons. But our clerical staff members have good alternatives in the private sector, in nonprofits and in public-sector workplaces. We will lose some of the best of them if they do not get a satisfactory offer soon.

Expert commentary in our times is rife with lament about the worsening distribution of income and wealth. The university's gap-spreading raises would contribute to the growing inequity in society at large. The huge compensation discrepancy between the highest-paid and lowest-paid university employees is already unsightly. As a leading public educational institution, doesn't the U have an obligation to set a more-equitable example?

And there is a disturbing gender dimension to this impasse. Faculty members, who are still predominantly male at the most highly paid levels, walk off with higher-percentage increases. The university agreed to a 3 percent increase, plus steps, for Teamsters members, whose jobs require less education than those of most of the strikers. But the strikers are mainly women. Because women earn 20 percent less on average than men for full-time work in our society, does this justify a lower wage offer? Are women workers apt to be less militant on the picket line and at the negotiating table because they are used to nurturing and being responsive to their supervisors? Are they more apt to rely on their salaries to cover household expenses and thus be less able to stay out of work? Is this the calculus?

Ironically, it costs the university much less to give a 3.25 percent raise to clerical and technical workers than it does to give the same increase to faculty and administrative staff, most of whom earn much higher salaries. We're not talking large sums here. Raising the offer from 2.25 percent to 3.25 percent for a striking worker who makes $30,000 a year would cost just $300, while a comparable 1 percent for a faculty or administrator who makes $80,000 would cost $800. We're not talking about much more than a million, a small fraction of the U budget.

For efficiency, equity and affirmative action's sake, the university should offer the union 3.25 percent as quickly as possible. The strike is causing considerable disruption to our teaching, research, outreach and financial activities. The longer it goes on, the more good workers we will lose, because the best will leave when they aren't treated well. Why go through all this for such a tiny share of the university budget?

Ann Markusen is professor and director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the university of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.