On Mar 15, 2007, at 10:26 AM, Willem Blees wrote: > Quoting johnsond <johnsond at stolaf.edu>: > >> It is feasible for us to do some kind of updated CAUT salary survey >> amongst ourselves? Perhaps have our committee come up with a few >> clear >> good questions that make distinctions between full or part time, >> employee or contracted? I imagine the office would be happy to >> compile >> that information for us. I'm sure most of us would really be >> interested >> to know what is an accurate "average" figure across the country, and >> >> could be a meaningful start point with negotiations. >> >> d. >> >> > > I believe Jeff Tanner of South Carolina is working on something like > this. Jeff, are you listening? Am now. Have had to be away a few days. What I am working on is very slow. I've started gathering salary RANGES for mostly public university positions as they have come available. In general, if you get one public university's salary range, you should have the information for all the state institutions in that state. I need to reorganize everything (I've been much too busy to work on it for a while), but I believe I have salary ranges for something like 18 states. But what I have does not indicate actual salary or earnings of any technician, and there is no rule of thumb one could use to estimate any technician's approximate salary because there is such a void of any kind of uniformity. (e.g. some states salary bands/ranges top out as low as the low 30s, while others exceed $100K, but you can't use that as a picture of actual earnings) Neither does it indicate the ratio of employer/employee contributions to the value of benefits, which is extremely time consuming and difficult to obtain, but is completely integral to the complete picture of salaries. The "take home" amount -- the amount you have left to live on month to month -- is not reflected by any of this. I haven't had a chance to look at the 2006 survey results, but I was very disappointed with the way many of the questions were worded. A lot has to be very inconclusive. I suggested changes to the way many of the questions and response options were worded, but I don't think any of them were made. I would also be curious as to how accurate the sample would be and how many actually participated. I wasn't expecting the survey to be closed as quickly as it was -- no deadline was indicated -- but by the time I had a chance to calculate my own earnings for the year (I didn't have my W2 yet, hadn't calculated my mileage expenses, etc.), they had closed the survey out. So my information isn't in there. I suspect a lot of other techs may have had similar experiences. It is very difficult to compare self employed earnings to those of an employed tech. There are lots of tax advantages self employed techs get that are not available to employed techs. The one most self employed techs fuss the most about is the "self-employment tax" - or as we employed techs call it: FICA. Self-employed techs pay a percentage approximately double that that employees pay (the remainder is paid, but by the employer - so the same percentage IS paid), but "self-employed tax" is paid on the NET income of a self employed technician. It is paid on the GROSS salary income of the employed tech. In other words, I (and my employer) have to pay FICA (and also income tax for that matter) on the car I drive to work, while the self-employed tech does not. There are many many tax benefits to being self employed that the employed tech does not realize. One other issue that clouds the salary question significantly is the fact that there are supposedly full time positions out there that are paying low salaries as full time positions, but unofficially allowing the technician to work half the hours. That little secret isn't known among administrators and salary setting bean counters who are looking at other positions to set salary levels. In the end, what we as an organization can do to improve the salary situation is to gather as much ACCURATE information as possible so that technicians who are either candidates for or incumbents of full time and part time positions can have the tools necessary when it comes time for salary negotiation. But we must educate every piano technician (or at least make the information available) who is interested in these jobs. The ONLY way we will ever improve the salaries is to demand higher ones of our employers or perspective employers. We must set the market and not allow the employer who knows little about what we do dictate it. I have been able to move up in my salary band the last couple of years by just putting my foot down, but once I get to the top of that salary band (which is not too far off now), there is no chance for advancement unless everyone else in our position is pushing together around the country. But as long as our deans and directors are under the impression that there are competent piano technicians standing in line for university jobs for $35-$40K while our self employed colleagues are capable of more than double that, we don't have much of a chance. Jeff Tanner, RPT Piano Technician School of Music University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 (803) 777-4392 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20070316/a6b94f97/attachment.html
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