@Zinhead if you read it carefully, I made it quite clear from the beginning that it is about top administrators at the level of president, VPs, provost, vice-provosts, and deans. The number of this group is usually around 20-40 depending on the size of the university.
The need to separate this group from the staffs is that, as I stated earlier, the criticism from the faculty is concentrated on the proliferation of these top administrators. But the reality is that the proliferation at lower-ranked staffs is actually more of a main driver of budget and tuition because the number of lower-ranked staffs is far more than that of top administration. Another reason for this separation is that the pay between top administrators and staffs is very different. It makes no economical sense to lump them together if one really wants to get to the bottom of it.
I have been in faculty union negotiation meetings with the top administrators a few times. I know the union has to fight with the administrators using the top administrators’ proliferation as a leverage; we did it all the times. It has been a good strategic move, but it has little to do with the truthfulness of our argument. In this kind of fights, it is more important to get a good deal, instead of getting to the bottom of it.