Salary revision process
This is the salary revision process for members covered by local union negotiations:
Scope
In the spring, the employer Uppsala University makes an estimate of where it is approximately reasonable to land the so-called "scope", which usually lies between the "floor" and the "ceiling" in a national perspective.
The scope is distributed to the Disciplinary Domains and to the University Administration. It does not have to be the same scope between the Domains and the Administration and it is not the same scope that the departments then get.
All heads of departments are given a number to relate to.
Needs inventory
Before each salary revision, the heads of departments are asked to make a needs inventory to investigate whether there are any salaries that need to be adjusted extra for one reason or another.
The heads of departments send in their requests to the Human Resources Division, which, in consultation with the management, makes certain investments.
The heads of departments seldom get everything they ask for, and sometimes they get nothing at all.
The employer's bid
Heads of departments/ equivalent offer employees salary dialogues.
The employee has their salary dialogue with the head of department/ equivalent, with the aim that the head of department/ equivalent should be able to make a fair assessment of the employee's performance. Based on this, the head of department/ equivalent proposes new salaries, which are double-checked from HR centrally at the University. If the bid is too high, the head of department/ equivalent must slim down their proposal.
Saco-S is not involved in this process at all.
The Saco-S association's work with the bids
Saco-S receives the employer's bid and works through the bid based on certain principles. These principles are:
- the employer needs to explain all zero bids and very low bids
- the employer needs to explain lower increases in already low salaries
- the employer needs to explain all salaries that are below the 10th percentile according to the salary statistics
- the employer needs to explain if either women or men have very low salaries
- extra efforts for certain groups (2021: researchers and postdocs and teaching staff)
- what emerges from the negotiation forms
Saco-S makes counter-offers to the employer according to these principles. Saco-S never lowers a proposed salary.
As mentioned above, the employee has an opportunity, if they are a member of a Saco-S union, to send us a negotiation form, which we have as help when we discuss the salary in the salary negotiations.
Table negotiations
Then table negotiations begin between the head of department/ equivalent and Saco-S on all the salaries. The head of department needs to be able to explain to us (but also to the employee after the revision is completed) their proposal for a new salary. We do not have much to say about certain salaries and we do not really discuss them much at all during the negotiations. Where we have a negotiation form, we always discuss the salary.
One criticism of the process that Saco-S has right now is that the employer is not willing to make major changes because they have already "used up" all their scope. The result of this is that the opportunity for dialogue and change is not as big during the negotiations.
When all negotiations are complete, the Saco-S Association signs an agreement that applies to all members at Uppsala University and then the salary revision is completed.
After the revision
After the revision, the employer has the obligation to answer any questions from the employee and explain the salary. Keep in mind, however, that what was said during the negotiations is confidential.