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State salary survey followup: How WWU compares

You may have read our earlier post about the recently-released state salary survey, which shows, in a nutshell, that 82% of Washington state employees are underpaid compared to statewide norms for similar work, and 30% are underpaid by more than 25%. For a refresher on that report, see the earlier post.

Now our own Dave Crook has analyzed our local numbers to see how the situation for WWU's PSE units compares to that of all state employees, and here's what he found:

Employee Count Percent Behind Ranges Behind
9 -62.5% 25 More than 25% behind: 242 employees
16 -42.5% 17
14 -37.5% 15
76 -35.0% 14
107 -32.5% 13
4 -30.0% 12
16 -27.5% 11
Employee Count Percent Behind Ranges Behind
24 -25.0% 10 Less than 25% behind: 85 employees
2 -22.5% 9
26 -20.0% 8
10 -10.0% 4
6 -5.0% 2
2 0.0% 0
2 +2.5% -1
13 +5.0% -2

Total employees: 327.

YIKES! 74% of us in WWU's BUD and PTE units are underpaid by more than 25% of the going rate for similar work, and some of us are underpaid by a much wider gap than that. PSE's two bargaining units at WWU are doing a lot worse than state employees overall, and as we saw in the original report, state employees overall are doing none too well. Any time you encounter accusations that state employees are lazy and overpaid, please counter them with these hard facts.

  • By tomm_admin at 05/26/2010 - 7:23am