Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.92
Liaison Katie Maynard
Submission Date Aug. 19, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of California, Santa Barbara
PA-9: Employee Compensation

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Mo Lovegreen
Director
Campus Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Number of employees:
4,394

Number of staff and faculty covered by sustainable compensation standards, guidelines, or policies; and/or collective bargaining agreements:
4,394

Does the institution have employees of contractors working on-site as part of regular and ongoing campus operations?:
No

Number of employees of contractors working on campus:
---

Number of employees of contractors covered by sustainable compensation standards, guidelines, or policies and/or collective bargaining agreements:
---

A brief description of the sustainable compensation standards, guidelines, or policies; and/or collective bargaining agreements covering staff, faculty and/or employees of contractors:

Background on Collective Bargaining at UC

The Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act

The Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA) is the state law that authorizes and regulates collective bargaining between the University of California and the labor organizations that represent UC employees. The complete text of the law is available on the web at http://www.perb.ca.gov/laws/HEERA.aspx.

The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) administers HEERA. PERB conducts representation elections and investigates and makes decisions regarding Unfair Labor Practice charges filed by employees, labor organizations and the University.

The law protects employees from reprisals, discrimination, coercion or interference with their exercise of HEERA rights, including the right to form, join and participate in the activities of employee organizations of their own choosing for the purpose of representation on all matters of employer-employee relations and for the purpose of meeting and conferring over those matters. Employees also have the right to refuse to join employee organizations or to participate in the activities of these organizations. Employees cannot, however, refuse to pay an agency fee (fair share) in lieu of paying membership dues.

Employees who are managerial or confidential within the meaning of HEERA, and some student employees, are excluded from the law's coverage. Supervisory employees have some rights to union representation under HEERA; however, the law prohibits collective bargaining of supervisors' terms and conditions of employment.

History of Collective Bargaining at UC

Under HEERA, a bargaining unit is a group of titles with a sufficient "community of interest" (e.g. similar working environment, occupational category, level of education) that a union can reasonably represent the employees in the unit - particularly the negotiation of the employees' terms and conditions of employment.

After the enactment of HEERA in 1979, PERB made a number of determinations about appropriate units at the University of California and conducted representation elections. There are fourteen collective bargaining units (CBU) on the UC Santa Barbara campus*. The current contract for each bargaining unit is available on UCnet (link is external). A list of campus bargaining units is available on the Unions at UCSB web page(http://www.hr.ucsb.edu/labor-relations/unions-ucsb). HEERA prohibits the University from negotiating directly with represented employees ("direct dealing") or consulting with any academic, professional or staff advisory group on any matter within the scope of representation.

The Negotiation Process

HEERA requires that in negotiating contracts the parties engage in good faith negotiations to try to resolve their differences and to attempt to achieve a signed contract. In the event the parties cannot reach agreement, HEERA provides intervention through an impasse procedure. This procedure includes mediation and fact-finding. If mediation fails, the mediator can elevate the issues to fact-finding. In the fact-finding process, the parties present their respective positions on the unresolved issues that are designated by law as mandatory subjects of bargaining to a three-member fact-finding panel. The panel issues recommendations for resolving the differences between the parties. At the conclusion of fact-finding, if the parties cannot reach agreement using the fact-finder's recommendations the recommendations become available to the public.

+ Date Revised: Dec. 4, 2014

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (assessing employee compensation)?:
Yes

Number of staff and faculty that receive sustainable compensation:
4,394

Number of employees of contractors that receive sustainable compensation:
---

A brief description of the standard(s) against which compensation was assessed:

The University of California is recognized world-wide for excellence in
education and research, and for the excellence of its medical enterprise. To
support and foster this excellence, the University will manage each element of
total compensation as follows:

•Align our total compensation with leading academic research institutions (public and
private) as well as national, regional and local organizations with whom the University
competes for talent;

•Align our jobs to the market based on their assigned responsibilities taking into
account job scope, accountabilities and value to the University;

•Build funding of total compensation programs into the annual budget process in
order to provide for competitive pay and total compensation package alignment;

•Reinforce a high-performance culture so as to attract, develop, motivate and retain
the talent needed; Compensate individuals for their relative levels of contribution to
the success of the University

•Provide cash incentive opportunities, where appropriate and aligned with market
prevalent practices, with actual payouts tightly linked to results and accountabilities;

•Establish consistent linkage of system-wide programs, systems and processes while
accommodating, where appropriate, a level of flexibility in administration to allow
campuses to operate and compete with relative autonomy within their respective
markets.

For more information, please see: http://www.ucop.edu/hrconf/2011/presentations/job-families-market-analysis.pdf


A brief description of the compensation (wages and benefits) provided to the institution’s lowest paid regular, full-time employees:

At UC Santa Barbara, most payroll titles are assigned either a grade or a step scale. Graded titles have a minimum and a maximum rate and employees can be paid anywhere within the range. Titles with a step scale (ie. step 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.) have a succession of steps, beginning with step 1.0 and ending with a negotiated maximum step (differs between titles). Generally speaking, positions in the Professional and Support Staff (PSS) program and the Managers and Senior Professionals (MSP) program are assigned a salary grade, and positions assigned to a Collective Bargaining Unit are on a step scale. Positions that are assigned a grade must be paid a salary within the minimum and maximum of the salary range, and positions that are on a step scale, must be paid on one of the negotiated steps.

In addition, full--time employees also receive:
Medical Insurance (a package of their choice)
Dental Insurance - UC pays the entire cost of monthly dental premiums for staff and their family members.
Vision - UC pays the entire cost of monthly vision premiums for staff and their family members.

UC Santa Barbara is governed by Federal Law but chooses to use the more generous California State Wage Minimum as it's minimum wage in order to remain competitive as an employer. Our Student Assistant positions begin at the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr*.

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hour
California State Minimum Wage = $8.00/hour*
UCSB Minimum Wage for Student Assistants = $8.00/hour*

*Please note: California minimum wage will be increasing to $9.00/hr effective 7-1-14. It will increase again to $10.00/hr effective 1-1-16.


A brief description of the compensation (wages and benefits) provided to the institution’s lowest paid regular, part-time employees:

UC Santa Barbara is governed by Federal Law but chooses to use the more generous California State Wage Minimum as it's minimum wage in order to remain competitive as an employer. Our Student Assistant positions begin at the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr*.

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hour
California State Minimum Wage = $8.00/hour*
UCSB Minimum Wage for Student Assistants = $8.00/hour*

*Please note: California minimum wage will be increasing to $9.00/hr effective 7-1-14. It will increase again to $10.00/hr effective 1-1-16.


A brief description of the compensation (wages and benefits) provided to the institution’s lowest paid temporary (non-regular) staff:

UC Santa Barbara is governed by Federal Law but chooses to use the more generous California State Wage Minimum as it's minimum wage in order to remain competitive as an employer. Our Student Assistant positions begin at the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr*.

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hour
California State Minimum Wage = $8.00/hour*
UCSB Minimum Wage for Student Assistants = $8.00/hour*

*Please note: California minimum wage will be increasing to $9.00/hr effective 7-1-14. It will increase again to $10.00/hr effective 1-1-16.


A brief description of the compensation (wages and benefits) provided to the institution’s lowest paid temporary (non-regular, adjunct or contingent) faculty:

UC Santa Barbara is governed by Federal Law but chooses to use the more generous California State Wage Minimum as it's minimum wage in order to remain competitive as an employer. Our Student Assistant positions begin at the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr*.

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hour
California State Minimum Wage = $8.00/hour*
UCSB Minimum Wage for Student Assistants = $8.00/hour*

*Please note: California minimum wage will be increasing to $9.00/hr effective 7-1-14. It will increase again to $10.00/hr effective 1-1-16.


A brief description of the compensation (wages and benefits) provided to the institution’s lowest paid student employees (graduate and/or undergraduate, as applicable):

UC Santa Barbara is governed by Federal Law but chooses to use the more generous California State Wage Minimum as it's minimum wage in order to remain competitive as an employer. Our Student Assistant positions begin at the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr*.

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hour
California State Minimum Wage = $8.00/hour*
UCSB Minimum Wage for Student Assistants = $8.00/hour*

*Please note: California minimum wage will be increasing to $9.00/hr effective 7-1-14. It will increase again to $10.00/hr effective 1-1-16.


The local legal minimum hourly wage for regular employees:
8 US/Canadian $

Does the institution have an on-site child care facility, partner with a local facility, and/or provide subsidies or financial support to help meet the child care needs of faculty and staff?:
Yes

Does the institution offer a socially responsible investment option for retirement plans?:
Yes

The website URL where information about the institution’s sustainable compensation policies and practices is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Please note the total employees listed about does not include faculty/academic employees.


Please note the total employees listed about does not include faculty/academic employees.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.