Employee wages and UBC’s return to classes were major topics of conversation at AMS Council’s biweekly meeting on Wednesday, January 26.
This was Council’s second meeting of 2022, featuring discussions on AMS employee pay, new furniture for The Gallery and advocacy as instruction returns to being in-person on February 7 and advocacy with regard to the February 7 return to in-person instruction. These are some of the highlights.
Pay raises coming for AMS staff
Council voted to increase base wages for all staff Wednesday evening, a move that the society hopes will make it a more competitive employer in the future.
This motion was put forward by the AMS’s Human Resources Committee and presented by Managing Director Keith Hester. Hester cited the AMS’s hiring difficulties as the main reason for the increase.
“We’ve been having difficulty hiring for a number of positions for a little bit of time, which is partially to do with the labour market shortages,” he said. “But also it’s to do with our wages as well because there’s a perception of the AMS as being below market.”
The AMS currently employs a three-tier pay structure, with the lowest tier of employees — including student staff, committee chairs and elections staff — making a minimum wage base rate of $15.20 per hour when they start work. The uppermost tier — including the assistant student services manager, ombudsperson and Speaker of Council — make $17 per hour.
The pay raise would increase base wages by roughly one dollar per hour, with Tier 1 employees making $16 hourly, Tier 2 employees making $17, and Tier 3 employees making $18. These rates would increase by 25 cents per hour after three months of employment.
These raises will also be applied to current AMS staff.
Hester also proposed that the AMS create a distinction between part-time and full-time employees, with slightly different wages for each type of position.
Hester admitted that while his preference would be to increase wages even more, budgetary constraints limited that capacity. Nonetheless, he argued that the increase would help employment, even slightly.
“We have done market reviews against our competitors in the UBC area and Downtown Vancouver to see what the market is paying,” Hester said. “We’re not top of the market but [these increases] make us competitive.”
The increases will be effective immediately.
AMS to advocate for multi-access instruction
AMS VP Academic & University Affairs Eshana Bhangu announced that the society will focus its advocacy efforts on pushing for expanded hybrid learning, or multi-access instruction, opportunities following the university’s announcement that classes will return to in-person instruction on February 7.
Bhangu briefly outlined the AMS’s rationale for endorsing such learning, arguing that multi-access instruction provides an in-person setting for students that would prefer to attend classes outside their own bedroom while allowing those less comfortable with the COVID-19 risk associated with in-person classes to learn from their own home.
“We think that’s really the future of excellence in teaching and learning,” said Bhangu in reference to multi-access instruction. “What the students really need right now is flexibility and options. That’s what we’ll push for.”
While many classes adopted a hybrid format last term, Bhangu hopes to expand its usage this spring to a more universal format. Multi-access instruction has previously been applied on a class-by-class basis.
Bhangu also reported that she has identified a supplier of KF94 masks for students and has secured funding to provide one for at least every student. However, she emphasized that it is the university’s responsibility to distribute masks once they arrive.
There was no timeline given on when those masks could arrive or be distributed. Bhangu also voiced these points of advocacy — as well as concerns over intellectual property and student engagement — in a letter covered by The Ubyssey earlier in the day.
In the meantime, Bhangu urged professors to be considerate of students’ needs when it comes to multi-access instruction and to make classes engaging for all attendees.
“I think an instructor really has to ask themselves the question that if the only incentive for a student to attend a class is a required grade and nothing more, perhaps it’s time to evaluate your teaching,” she said.
Share this article
