http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2013/04/no-more-excuses

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2013/04/more-than-the-bare-minimum

And how can YOU get involved?

Come out, ask hard questions, and learn about your fellow students’ efforts to get fair wages for everyone on Grounds.

Please RSVP for the event on Facebook

• Direct employees currently make at least $11.30/hr plus benefits.
• Contract employees (or, those employed to do work at the University via an outside company, like Aramark Dining Services) can be paid as little as federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr) with no benefits.
• Direct and contract employees often do the exact same jobs, like cleaning buildings, but for very different pay.

Q: What are the stats here? How many contract employees? What is their average pay?

A:  We don’t know and neither does the University.

• Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Living Wage Campaign has reviewed a number of current contracts.  They all state that contractors will provide employee and compensation information to UVA on a yearly basis.
• Administrators assert they don’t have this information; when we FOIA them, we get nothing.
• There have been promises from the highest levels of the University administration to eventually collect this data. However, there has been no action to follow up on these promises – politically, it is easier and more convenient for the administration not to know.

Q: Why does the University use contract labor?

A: There are always pressures to cut costs and increase efficiency, and some try to get gains by cutting compensation for the lowest paid employees. The scale of that gain is small compared to other expenses of the University, while the consequences to the affected workers are great. We live in a community where these contract employees are the most excluded constituency and thus they are constantly targets. The University publicizes the fact that they pay their direct employees at least $11.30/hr plus benefits, but the truth is that contract workers can be paid as little as $7.25/hr without benefits. That’s a huge difference in terms of people’s daily lives!

Q:  Didn’t some lawyer say it’s illegal for the University to require that contracting companies pay certain wages?

A:  Kind of, but not really. In 2006, then-President Casteen solicited a legal opinion on this matter from then-Attorney General McDonnell in response to actions from the Living Wage Campaign. The AG’s opinion quoted a best-value consideration in legislation governing public contracts, claiming that it was illegal to mandate the pay of contracted employees. Our lawyers have reviewed relevant case law and have shown that this claim is legally flimsy. There are no specific laws in either direction, so the best answer is that this is a legal grey area. But the University has hidden behind this convenient legal fiction for years to avoid doing what is right.

What: A committee formed by the administration are going to be having a public forum on what it means to be a “Public University”. There will be a chance for public discussion.

When: Wednesday, Dec. 12th at 4PM. People from the campaign will be assembling with signs starting at 3:30PM. At 4PM we will go into the meeting. If you plan to come please come early, the event might fill up.

Where: The South Meeting Room in Newcomb Hall on UVA’s campus.

Our Stance: Public Universities are supposed to serve all of Virginia – this includes the local community! Public Universities are not businesses and they have more important things than the bottom line – a fair relationship with the community needs to be a priority. UVa has enough money to pay all of its employees enough money to live with dignity but chooses not to – a few months ago the University paid a departing vice president nearly $1 million in severance pay. However when it comes to community members at the bottom of the pay scale the University is eager to cut any corners it can.

A question you can ask at the forum:

• UVa claims to have it’s own minimum wage of $11.30 per hour. However it continues to avoid doing so by contracting out work to private companies who are allowed to pay as little as $7.25 per hour. The University has the legal right to ask these subcontractors to pay at least $11.30. When people are not paid enough to survive the costs are picked up by the rest of the community. Is this a fair way to run a public university?

It has been eight months since the Living Wage Campaign called an end to its thirteen-day hunger strike. That action drew attention to UVA’s responsibility to its lowest paid employees and demonstrated that all work is dignified work. UVA’s responsibility to its lowest paid employees became a major issue on campus. We also spread the message that all work is dignified work. The University administration was compelled to increase UVa’s base hourly wage from $10.65 to $11.30 white the City of Charlottesville raised its base hourly wage to $13, the same number we had been petitioning for during our strike.

The support we received from the community was resolute and inspiring. Many of you have been allies of the campaign for longer than any of the current students. You were a constant presence at our rallies and were vocal about our cause. Some of you spoke on the behalf of community organizations that deal first-hand with the consequences of UVa’s low wages. When many of the strikers felt too weak to go on your energy helped sustain them. We would not have accomplished nearly as much without your help.

While our past actions have had positive consequences we still have work to do. The University continues to refuse to pay a Living Wage. Even the base wage that the University has announced is eroding – the University has begun contracting more services to companies that are not required to pay $11.30. Someone can work a full time job on our University’s campus and still be paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25. These are members of both the University and Charlottesville communities, and they deserve better.

This coming year we’re throwing our efforts towards the cause “Equal Pay for Equal Work”. We want the University to require its major contractors to pay at least what UVA says it pays its lowest paid employees: $11.30. In the future we want these contractors to pay whatever base pay and benefits UVA advertises for itself. We believe we can win this. Thanks to the local chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild we have a firm case that it is completely legal for UVA to enact wage requirements for contractors. We even have promises on paper from members of the administration to start making contracting data more transparent.

The administration, and in particular President Sullivan, has had its own struggles over these eight months. Much of the dialogue on grounds has shifted to issues of the corporatization of higher education and the intransigence of the Board of Visitors. The Living Wage Campaign believes that the most pressing and outrageous injustice on our campus remains the University’s treatment of its lowest paid workers. We will make this loud and clear this school year. We hope that we will have your support when we need it again.

For a printable flyer with info about the event, click here.

To join the Facebook event, click here.

This turn of events is surprising, given that Sullivan has served as UVa’s president for only two years. While the relationship between President Sullivan and the Living Wage Campaign has been strained at times, we recognize her as a leader who worked hard to make the University a more caring community. Though the goal of a Living Wage for all university employees was not achieved during her presidency, some positive steps were made, such as the recent wage increases for direct employees. We respect President Sullivan for her service and regret that her term as the University’s first female president has ended so abruptly.

President Sullivan has cited “a philosophical difference of opinion” with the Board of Visitors as the reason for her resignation. While it is unclear exactly what that “difference of opinion” might be, Rector Dragas spoke at length about budgetary concerns in her statement, saying that the University needs “resolution of tough financial issues that require hard decisions on resource allocation.”  We hope that the Board of Visitors will offer greater transparency on budget priorities and processes as the search for a new president gets underway. However, as the non-elected governing body of the University, the BOV is under no obligation to make themselves accountable to the University at large. This lack of transparency and accountability at the highest level of University administration has impeded past efforts toward achieving just wages and working conditions for the lowest-paid workers at UVa; now, it appears that even President Sullivan’s job security has been sacrificed to the Board’s budget priorities, with little clear explanation or accountability to the University at large. Conscientious members of the University community should ask themselves whether this opaque power structure is truly a model of governance that serves the University’s best interests.

We of the Living Wage Campaign hope that the Board of Visitor’s focus on budget efficiency will not preclude further consideration of the role and wages of the lowest-paid staff here. We further hope that Vice President Michael Strine’s promise of greater transparency regarding contract employees will be kept. As we have continuously emphasized, budgets are not merely shopping lists written in response to the exigencies of the immediate financial situation; they are documents which express moral priorities. As an institution which strives to be a “caring community,” as President Sullivan envisioned, the University  cannot accomplish its goals of education, research, healthcare, and service by continuing to exploit the low-wage workers, including contract workers, whose labor is essential to the daily functioning of the University. We will continue to urge the Board of Visitors and President Sullivan’s successor, whoever he or she may be, to rectify this injustice and institute a Living Wage for all employees at the University of Virginia.