Equitable Pay and Wage Growth: The Time Is Now
Across the press, workers have been asked to buckle down and accept lower pay and wage freezes for the good of our mission. We’re told that publishing is a low-paying industry and that our compensation is more than just our paycheck. When one worker grumbles about pay, another pipes up to say that we knew what we were getting into.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
At DUP, industry-leading professionals are rewarded with an arbitrary system for merit raises, promotions, and reclassifications, a system where it is too easy to stagnate based on your hiring salary, and where wages overall are not keeping pace with the rapidly rising cost of living in Durham. As a result, many of our coworkers rely on freelance work, second jobs, or income from partners to fill in the gaps to afford to live in Durham, where the average home price has gone up almost 12% in just the last year. With much of our income going to basic necessities, additional expenses such as student debt, child care, or medical expenses can become crushing burdens. Now is the time to use our collective power to eliminate these inequities and make sure every worker gets the pay they deserve.
The current paths for wage growth at the press are not working. One way to avoid stagnation is to get a merit raise based on annual performance evaluations, but these can feel arbitrary. Top rankings are strictly limited, so many workers at the press receive glowing reviews only to find their final score a disappointing “satisfactory.” Even when a worker does receive top recognition, wage increases are not guaranteed. One Assistant Managing Editor who is close to retirement finally earned an “exceptional” evaluation in 2020 only for Duke to freeze pay in response to the pandemic, leaving them without their expected merit raise. Without that raise, this editor will now retire with a lower final salary and thus receive less for their pension. At the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), their unit with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild (the same local we’ve organized with) negotiated a 3% annual salary increase for all staff. Even small improvements in guaranteed wage increases compound dramatically over time. Since its founding, the University of California graduate student instructor union has cumulatively seen 30% more in wage increases for its members compared to non-union academic employees.
Another way to avoid stagnation is to earn a promotion or a job reclassification. Currently, there is no clear path to earning a promotion or a reclassification, leaving staff dependent on sympathetic managers being willing to advocate for them. Even then, promotions can be held up for years. It took a Marketing Designer almost two years of conversations to get their job reclassified, and that was with the help of a sympathetic manager. After learning of our unionization efforts, Duke pushed through a dozen reclassifications and promotions, some of which had been stalled for a year. At Harvard University Press, the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers contract requires that reclassification requests be addressed within four weeks, and if an employee and supervisor cannot agree on a reclassification, the decision can be referred to a joint union-university committee to make a final determination. At Duke, the faculty union contract establishes a fund that enables its members to apply for up to $1,000 per year in professional development grants to advance their careers.
Even when the established avenues for advancement work, a staff member’s new pay will be determined by the pay scale they were hired at. This initial salary will determine their pay throughout their time at DUP. When we are hired, we are told that we can’t negotiate our salaries. Annual raises move only slightly faster than the pay scale, meaning it can take decades to move up within a pay band. For instance, one Senior Production Coordinator with 11 years’ experience earns less than some of their junior colleagues in part because of their different starting salaries. Unionized Harvard University Press workers receive “progression” bonuses that give additional raises to anyone earning below the maximum rate in their pay band to allow underpaid employees to catch up.
DUP management has talked for years about investigating pay equity, including renewed promises shortly after the DUP Workers Union went public, without making any real changes, in part because these are issues that the press can’t solve on its own. It needs Duke’s buy-in. Only with a union can we negotiate a contract directly with Duke to make our pay reflect the value we bring to the press. At the same time, the union exists to lift up all its members—not pull any down. Many union contracts include provisions that expressly allow individual negotiation or pay increases beyond those established by the contract and grandfather in any salary or other special arrangement that is already more generous than the contract terms in order to preserve individual negotiation power and the flexibility to maintain competitive offers.
The kinds of provisions we talk about here would allow us to afford childcare, cover rent without roommates, buy a house, or retire knowing our pension will be enough. They help to fix the current structure that forces staff to leave the press in order to find any real wage growth or to rely on additional sources of income to make ends meet. They would allow us to more easily lay roots in Durham and make DUP a place to stay for the long term. They represent peace of mind and an assurance that our salaries reflect our value to our employer. Now is the time.