Michigan Capitol Confidential did a story about employee compensation, focusing on the Ann Arbor Transit Authority. The following is a response from AATA CEO Michael Ford.

The short answer is that we have developed a very systematic approach to employee compensation that takes several factors into account. AATA competes, not only with other transit systems, but with all businesses and organizations within southeast Michigan.  We analyze every employee’s performance on a yearly basis and compare their compensation package with similar sized organizations in Southeast Michigan so as to ensure we are able to attract and retain top talent in the region.

The long answer is that our salary administration plan was originally developed in the early 1990’s by an independent consulting firm and has been updated at least bi-annually ever since.  Our salary plan is designed to compete with organizations that are within the following parameters:

• That are in the non-manufacturing sector
• That have employment between 100 and 500 employees
• That are located in Southeast Michigan

AATA is committed to the design, development, and maintenance of compensations programs, including salary and benefits, which compare competitively with those of similar companies within southeast Michigan for equivalent work.  It is AATA’s objective to provide a salary program that enables the organization to:

• Attract and retain high caliber employees
• Recognize and compensate employees for varying degrees of job responsibilities
• Reward individual employee contributions and motivate employees to improve their level of job performance.

We use a merit system that rewards employees based on individual performance, financial condition of the Authority, competitive job market, and general economic conditions. Each employee’s job is then carefully analyzed and ranked by against the following 14 criteria:

• Knowledge required for the position
• Internal contacts made in the course of work
• External contacts made in the course of work
• Impact of decisions made
• Effects of errors
• Confidentiality required
• Level of self-direction
• Judgment and problem solving needs and abilities
• Physical conditions under which the employee works
• Social conditions of the position
• Psychological conditions of the position
• Supervision responsibility
• Supervision complexity
• Project and/or Team responsibilities

The results of these scorings and rankings are then compared to similar studies conducted throughout southeast Michigan for comparable positions in order to establish a system of salary ranges and grade levels.  All non-union positions are evaluated annually to determine the need for salary range adjustments to keep them competitive within southeast Michigan. 

Individual performance reviews are held annually to determine merit increases within those ranges.  All non-union positions have been segregated into one of 10 salary grade levels based upon the job evaluation points determined by their job analysis.  As jobs grow and change over time, new job analyses are made to determine if the position’s job evaluation point total (i.e. the responsibilities associated with the job) has changed enough to justify movement to another grade level.

The object of this analysis and annual adjustments is to have a salary program that compensates employees at what is known as the “midpoint” range for similar salaries within southeast Michigan.  Over the last 12 years, AATA’s salaries have moved from being substantially below their midpoint range to being much closer to the midpoint. In 2010, AATA salaries were 98.6% of their midpoint salary range.

The positions in question occupy salary grade levels 8, 9, and 10.  The Chief Executive Officer is the only official in Grade 10 while the Assistant Executive Director is the sole occupant of Grade 9.  The remaining positions are in Grade 8 and are all AATA department managers. 

The eight employees, who make over $90,000, have an average of 18.5 years with AATA and an average of 32.2 years in their field, (transit management, fleet maintenance, information technology, human resources and accounting).  Five have over 14 years with AATA, including three with over 30 years with AATA.

I hope this information has shed some more light on our approach to employee compensation.

Graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan who do not want to belong to a union have some high-profile allies who have kept a low profile.

The Mackinac Center has obtained a confidential letter to U of M Provost Philip Hanlon expressing a “deep and collective concern about the potential negative impacts that would result from the unionization of the University’s graduate student research assistants.”

The letter was signed by 18 Deans of the university’s 19 schools and colleges. Also signing was the University Librarian and Dean of Libraries. The lone holdout was Christopher Kendall, Dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Kendall, however, told the Mackinac Center in an email that he was on board as well:

"The School of Music, Theatre and Dance strongly supported the position articulated in the deans' letter. We didn't sign it simply because the role of our two GSRAs doesn't correspond precisely with the description in the letter. Again, however, the School was strongly in accord with the principles expressed by the deans."

The union, known as the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), was founded at U of M in 1970, which, according to its website, makes the GEO ”one of the oldest graduate employee unions in the United States.” The GEO currently represents graduate student instructors and graduate student staff assistants, but earlier this year made moves to expand its membership at the Ann Arbor campus by including graduate student research assistants.

The GEO petitioned the Michigan Employment Relations Commission in April to be allowed to move forward with its unionization attempt. The following month, the U of M Regents voted 6-2 to support the GEO’s effort, saying in a June 2011 statement, “We took this action because GSRAs are employees as well as students.”

This directly contradicted university President Mary Sue Coleman, who told the Regents in May: “I do not see research assistants as our employees but as our students. … When I was a graduate student, I did not see myself as working for the university and I did not see my faculty mentor as my employer. Far from it.”

Coleman went on to suggest the university’s provost agreed with her: “I know I speak for Provost Hanlon as well when I express my concern about characterizing our research assistants as University employees.”

While Coleman’s comments were publicly stated, the similar sentiments expressed the deans of 18 schools and colleges* were not. In a letter dated June 24, 2011, and labeled “Confidential – By Hand Delivery,” the deans told Provost Hanlon that they respect the Regents’ decision, however, “We believe that such a union would put at risk the excellence of our university and the success of our graduate student research assistants.” Further remarks in the letter explain their position:

 “We note that graduate student research assistants are not unionized at the peer institutions against whom the University competes for faculty and graduate students …We worry that a GSRA union would make Michigan an outlier when the best and brightest graduate students compare research opportunities, and when we work to recruit excellent research faculty. A vast majority of the faculty members with whom we have spoken do not support GSRA unionization because of the potential negative impact on their one-on-one relationships with students and the University’s competitive position among its peers.”

For now the deans, along with Coleman and Hanlon, may breathe a little easier.

In response to a motion filed by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation in July on behalf of Melinda Day, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission stood by its 1981 decision that these GSRAs are not public employees who can be unionized. What this means is MERC essentially refused to grant the public-sector GEO permission to organize this group of graduate students.

This is not to say the matter is entirely finished.

"There is still  time to appeal the MERC decision and the union and the Regents may be concocting another legally dubious plan to work around the 1981 decision," said MCLF Director Patrick Wright. "Regardless, students working towards their dissertations are not 'public employees' and cannot be forced into a government employees union.”

~~~~~

*Editor’s note: Two of the deans’ letter signatories no longer occupy the positions held at the time of this letter. They are Robert Dolan, former Business School Dean and Rosina Bierbaum, former Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment.