pay raises wasRe: [CAUT] job opening

[Fred Sturm]

Hi Wim,
	In a state university system, there are usually a bunch of hoops in place 
when you are after a pay raise. At my U, we tend to have a set percentage 
("cost of living" or the like) that pretty much everyone gets (unless 
there's a freeze that year), with a bit of money left over to provide 
flexibility for  "merit" increases. These have to be triggered by superior 
ratings in the annual performance review. I have received over the maximum 
merit increase a couple times, due to successful lobbying, which included 
documentation of salaries at "peer institutions."
	If your pay grade is limited, and you reach or near the maximum pay scale 
within it, you're pretty much stuck unless the job is "eliminated and 
re-classified." My brother-in-law, who is in an entirely different line of 
work in a different department, went through such a process once. He had to 
re-apply for the job, and they had to go through a regular hiring process 
(meaning he risked losing the job), but he ended up with a much more 
lucrative position.
	In the area of piano tech, a similar reclassification might easily be 
possible, depending how the job is currently described. The higher grade 
jobs tend to have fancier sounding responsibilities. Management of 
employees is the most automatic, but being in charge of purchase of new 
instruments, vending of contract rebuilding, or just an accurate 
description of what pretty much all of us do (in terms of assessing the 
inventory and making most or all the decisions) can easily lead to a person 
from human resources saying "that deserves a grade 15 instead of just a 10" 
or the like. A job description that just covers mechanical/technical work 
tends to receive a lower grade. (When I first got them to convert my 
position from contract to employed, human resources looked at the 
description and set it at a grade that paid from $7.50 - $12.50/hr. Funny 
thing: nobody applied. After some nudging, they reclassified to a grade 
that went from something like $13 - $27/hr).
	Bottom line - you have to learn and work with the system. Keep track of 
what you do and blow your own horn (we do an annual self-evaluation, which 
is the basis for the administrator's evaluation). Note and document what 
extra responsibility you have taken on, what additional training 
opportunities you have sought out and taken advantage of, what you have 
done within your professional organization. Pad that resume. Make friends 
and influence people <g>.
	I make an hourly wage. At first I thought I'd rather be on salary, but I 
soon realized that the hourly system is better, at least from my point of 
view. It means you are actually protected by the FLSA (Federal Labor 
Standards Act - I think that's right), meaning entitlement to overtime, and 
various other guidelines. It might not matter, assuming you have a good 
relationship with your department, but chairs and administrators do change, 
usually more often than piano technicians, so there's no guarantee a good 
relationship will last.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico

--On Wednesday, November 3, 2004 3:20 PM -0500 Wimblees@aol.com wrote:

> The UT job starts at $31,000. Similar positions at other universities
> have advertised similar pay scales. I was fortunate to start a little
> higher. But other than pay raises at the whim of the Board of Directors
> of the university, I don't see me getting anything else in the way of a
> pay raise.
>
> This has been brought up before on this list. Are there any of you that
> have received pay raises for doing a good job, or as a change in your
> status?
> Most jobs at a university, from janitors to professors, have a chance for
> advancement. But once a piano tuner gets hired, there is no place to go.
> Is this something the CAUT guidelines should address?
> Wim