Equal pay for all PhDs at UiA and in Norway

As a result of ongoing discussions in the PhD community at UiA, UiAdoc would like to put forward a request on behalf of its members to correct the base gross salary pay-gap between PhDs employed by our university.

PhD salary base level increased from 50 to 54 for PhDs that started work after May 2019 (link to article). This makes the base yearly gross salary 479 600 NOK.

The difference is considerable, as PhDs hired in 2017 and 2018 on level 50 started on a yearly brutto salary of 436 900 and 442 400 respectively. The income gap between newly employed PhDs and PhDs working at UiA for more than a year can go over 30 000 NOK in some cases, which we consider as unequal treatment. In most cases more senior PhDs support their newly employed peers with their accommodation period, even mentoring them in many cases (all PhDs should have a PhD mentor). This is a service offered by senior PhDs on a volunteer basis, no time extension being offered for it. As most senior PhDs are happy to offer this service to their peers, we find it unfair that this is negatively reflected in our payroll for PhDs that started work before May 2019.

As a result to these arguments, the PhDs at UiA supported by UiAdoc, Tekna and Forskerforbundet would like to request that, starting 1st of January 2020, all PhDs employed by UiA would receive equal base pay, with the corresponding annual salary increase added to the base salary according to each individual’s seniority.

Petition initiate by: Sinziana Rasca- president UiAdoc Anne Deininger- vicepresident UiAdoc Aleksandar Avramovic- treasurer UiAdoc Eric Kimathi- Secretary of the Board UiAdoc Zachary Bresler- Charge of Communication UiAdoc