Well, Who'd Have Guessed...

Last week when I cracked that there ought to be some sort of "progressive taxation" on University employees in time of trouble, I assumed I was just being snide. But here is UC President Mark Yudof with just such a plan and it looks like it is going to happen:

Most University of California professors and staff would have to take between 11 and 26 unpaid furlough days a year, cutting their pay by 4% to 10% under a revised budget proposal announced Friday by UC President Mark Yudof.

The UC Board of Regents is expected to approve the emergency plan next week in response to deep reductions in anticipated state funding. ...

The proposed furlough days would progress in seven steps up the pay scale, from those earning less than $40,000 to those above $240,000. For example, the group earning $60,001 to $90,000 would face 18 furlough days, equal to a 7% pay cut. The stepped plan is a major change from a controversial earlier proposal that had only two salary groups, and from an idea to cut pay without offering furloughs in exchange.

Link. Though exactly how a faculty member "takes a furlough" is far from clear. The typical professor's career is built around his research agenda. Although she may draw a paycheck from the university, she is in fact a kind of entrepreneurial free agent, devoting his primary efforts toward more and better publication so she can promote herself to a better job or at least more prestige. Meanwhile, Yudof is making it clear that is proposal does not allow for class cancellations. Meanwhile the primary. That leaves what? Committee service? Most faculty either (a) pretty much blow that off; or (b) do it for fun--so in either case, it is unlikely that their output will change much. Student contact? The truth is, in most departments, students don't demand that-all much student contact, and if faculty members provide contact hours, the chances are they do it because they are motivated from a sense of loyalty to their craft.

So for faculty (unlike staff), what we have here is an outright pay cut. That's lamentable. They need to put food on the table, and they deserve to be recognized. But in their heart of hearts, most of them know that they love the job and that if they had to, they'd probably do it for for free.