Academic staff receiving raise on April 1st

As you may recall, the academic staff at the University of Calgary will receive a 1.25% across-the-board wage increase on April 1st as part of the Collective Agreement ratified by the Board of Governors and the Faculty Association last June.

Note that you might not see the wage increase until your second April pay, but it will be effective April 1, 2023.

This will be the first wage increase for academic staff since the members won an arbitration award of 1.7% for 2019-2020 after the Board of Governors sought a 2% wage rollback. The CPI has increased by about 6% over the last year. So, while staff will see a nominal wage increase, it is effectively a cut.

This follows a decade of low salary increases. Between 2010 (when the previous University President took office) and the 2019 arbitration award, the negotiated settlement totalled only 7%, while inflation during that period was approximately 16%.

Further, academic staff at the University of Calgary have seen their wages fall behind peers at other U15 Universities, including the University of Alberta, and according to the latest data from Statistics Canada, the University of Calgary ranked 13th of 15 in the U15 average 2021-2022 academic staff salaries. While the University of Alberta has also fallen to 8th within the U15, the average salary for academic staff was about 14% higher for 2021-2022 than that for academic staff at the University of Calgary.

Salaries at the University of Calgary are so low that the Faculty Association hears warnings from Department Heads and equivalents that academic staff are leaving for better-paying universities. They are sometimes struggling to fill these vacancies due to budget constraints. In some cases, they are observing failed searches.

The strains are clearly showing as the University of Calgary falls further and further behind its sister Universities.