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Wage Wars
by Professor Eric Lott
As the city's primary employer, U.Va. has an established
role in the setting of wage levels for the entire area. How
troubling, then, are the financial prospects facing many of
its current employees. At this internationally respected
university founded by one of the chief proponents of
American liberty, the starting wage for its housekeeping
staff is $12,756 -- far below the poverty line for a family
of four ($16,450). Consider the grim fact that over half of
the housekeeping staff (but only 4% of the faculty) of the
university is African American -- we have U.Va.'s own
commissioned investigation and its subsequent Muddy Floor
Report to thank for these figures -- and you need wonder no
longer why the Labor Action Group is currently running a
Living Wage Campaign. Compounded across-the-board raises
for staff from 1983-1998 amount to exactly half (55%) of
the raises for faculty (110%) in that period of time. And
faculty are often the first to whine about how little they
make compared to professionals in the private sector!
As for slightly higher levels of U.Va. staff, the office
workers who, with the housekeepers, are fundamental to
keeping the university up and going, the starting salary
is, alas, a meager $15,588 -- still below the poverty line
-- and there are many who will tell you they've settled in
for the long haul at around $18-20,000. Sure it'll buy
groceries, but no peace of mind. Can it be a coincidence,
then, that many office and other staff have started to
agitate for better working conditions in the last few years?
Let's look at their bosses' predicament. Big ol' university
to run. Lotta people, lotta equipment, lotta changes to
come. But times are apparently flush. The president
recently got an enormous raise, and now makes upwards of
$250,000. The provost makes over 20 times what the lowest
paid U.Va. staffer makes. From what I hear, CEOs don't have
to worry much about time clocks and extra money for roof
repairs. They've got bigger things on their minds, like
making sure Scott Stadium gets $44 million for renovation
in the coming months, and that their HMO, QualChoice,
doesn't go under (cost: $38 million). Not to worry, though
-- the very successful capital campaign got upped from its
$750 million starting target to a cool billion, the dollars
were pouring in so fast. Yet the suits stay worried, and
they pass their worries on to the staff in the form of
specific economic and workplace hardships. In 1996, the
university decided to switch its pay schedule around and
told staff (who had little if any input on this) that to
make the change it had to withhold or lag two weeks pay --
until the employee "retired," when the money would come
through. (High times at 65!) Recently the university, again
with little or no staff say, has instituted stepless pay
ranges for staff that the administration says (of course)
will allow them greater leeway in rewarding excellent
employees but that many workers fear will make wage rates
even more arbitrary and unequal.
Then came U.Va.'s successful lobbying effort on behalf of
Senate Bill 126. This new financial deal will discontinue
the practice of rolling over and saving up unused sick
leave (15 days per year), which employees often stowed away
in the case of a long illness in the family or other
emergency. Sick leave will now be converted at the end of
each year to a totally different category of benefit --
disability insurance, which you maybe will and maybe won't
use. In other words, a disability benefit gets raised, but
only by taking away from a stock of valuable sick leave; in
effect, workers are now punished for good attendance! At an
April "town meeting" to "explain" the change to come, an
official beat the drum for the benefits of this new plan,
complete with long-winded scare scenarios showing how
frequent dire accidents occured both on the job and off
("why, just a few days ago I broke my toe getting in my
car," etc., etc.). Clearly the employees were not buying.
Many rankled questioners generally exposed the one-sided
forcing of sick leave take-backs by U.Va., ruffling the
designated explainer. Hard to avoid the conclusion that
U.Va. is balancing the budgets for its various renovations
and investments and big salaries on the backs of its
employees.
You will hear from U.Va. officials that most U.Va.
employees are perfectly happy -- why, they never hear any
complaints! (Quickest way to get your ass fired.) Or that
their hands are tied by the state government in Richmond.
Readers should know as well as I do that neither is true.
The air of employee grievance at U.Va. is very thick
indeed. Do administration officials really think all those
who protested the 1996 lag pay scheme, or who spoke out
against the loss of sick leave, were exceptions? (So much
for hearing the concerns of your workers.) And do they
expect us to believe that a state government that only
contributes a little more than 10% of U.Va.'s operating
budget per year really gets to call all the shots? That
we're not aware that U.Va. was granted a significant degree
of autonomy from the state in 1995, and so can tell the
state its plans at least as much as the other way around?
The shocking fact remains that perhaps as many as one third
of U.Va.'s full-time workers are eligible for food stamps.
Thomas Jefferson might not be happy about this, or that so
many employees who labor in his name take second and third
jobs just to survive.
The Living Wage Campaign, launched by U.Va.'s Labor Action
Group in April, seeks to bring the starting wage for every
U.Va. staff person up to $8 an hour. This would at least
deliver a wage not below the poverty line to university
workers. Who on earth can quarrel with that? U.Va.
officials know it would take only $3-5 million in
reallocated funds, barely the cream off its milk and honey,
to make $8 an hour a reality. Meanwhile, at least one
university employee executive council has passed a
resolution expressing its concerns about substandard wages
at U.Va., and the Monticello Area Community Action Agency
and the Albemarle NAACP, among others, have endorsed the
Living Wage Campaign. The university's chief financial
officer himself, Leonard Sandridge, acknowledged publicly
in April that bottom-rung salaries are inadequate and must
be addressed. In the coming months it just makes sense to
press U.Va. -- Leonard Sandridge as well as Rector John P.
Ackerly -- for $8 an hour. Otherwise we might have to start
calling this place Mr. Poe's university, where the employees
are spooked, alienated, and in debt.
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