No, this is not an optical illusion, and yes, you can believe your eyes: the scale adjustment for the 2023-2024 fiscal year is 1%, at least for the time being. But let’s start from the beginning: our previous blog post discussed how Bill 124 limited wage increases for the University of Waterloo employees. The salary increase for each employee typically consists of two parts, namely the scale adjustment and the merit adjustment. As a result of Bill 124, a 1% cap was imposed on scale adjustment, and it was supposed to remain in place for three years, from May 1st, 2021 until April 30th, 2024. Compare 1% to 1.95% — the lowest scale adjustment the university had for a decade preceding 2021.
This wage-suppressing legislation was met with fierce resistance by many public sector workers, including teachers and nurses who actively protested against it. When the bill was deemed unconstitutional by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice back in November, negotiations between employers and employees reopened, and we have been seeing quite a number of bargaining successes at other universities and colleges. In a recent OCUFA newsletter it is mentioned that King’s University College Faculty Association (KUCFA)
…has successfully negotiated a wage increase on top of the one per cent that they were restricted to under Bill 124. The new ratified agreement provides a 2.95 per cent wage increase retroactive to May 1st, 2023. This change reflects a 1.95 per cent increase in addition to the one per cent increase KUCFA negotiated under duress due to the wage restraint legislation.
The fact that unconstitutional legislation is de facto still in effect at University of Waterloo is quite concerning. What is even more concerning is a recent communication from the HR Department, where it is stated that most recent salary increases have been determined in accordance with the Memorandum of Agreement and the Memorandum of Salary Settlement of February 19, 2021. One can interpret this as follows: since there has been an agreement back in February 19th, 2021 to set a 1% cap for 2023-2024 fiscal year, the cap should remain in place for that year.
When it comes to communication from the administration, the silence is deafening. The email from HR does not mention anything about Bill 124, as if things are the way they are supposed to be. While on March 6th it has been reported that the administration had agreed to review 2021 salary settlement, nothing is currently known about the status of this review. Even if the new agreement is set, we do not know when it is going to commence, and it is unlikely that there’ll be any retroactive actions taken (compare this to Queen’s University, where Annual across-the-board (ATB) increases of 3.5 per cent, three per cent, and three per cent were achieved retroactive to July 1, 2022).
Inspired by the successes of faculty associations across Ontario, we built a calculator tool where one can compare the amount of money that University of Waterloo employees lose over a ten year period, in comparison to inflation, as well as to our colleagues from Queen’s University and Trent University. We encourage you to check it out and let the numbers speak for themselves.
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