The Labor Action Group held a forum yesterday afternoon to criticize the University's new payment plan and call for greater activism among employees, faculty and students.
In Virginia, salaries for laborers - except for teaching or administrative faculty --- is determined by a grade. Each grade determines the starting and ending salaries of employees. Under the newly devised plan, which will go into effect Monday, grades are grouped together, allowing for more flexibility and expansion within a particular job. It also allows supervisors to award bonuses to their employees, a provision not provided for under the previous plan, University spokeswoman Louise Dudley said.
LAG activist Wilson McIvor, a research specialist in the biology department, explained and criticized the plan.
For the last nine years the University has used a "pay for performance" plan that "supposedly linked income and raises to performance," McIvor said.
He explained that under-funding was the main problem with this system and said the new plan "is funded in exactly the same way."
Student tuition and state tax money provides the funding for salaries of employees.
McIvor called the University's new system "broad-banding." He said it compresses job titles into broader categories, giving supervisors more freedom in defining employees' duties and salaries.
According to McIvor, University Human Resources created this system to make the plan simpler to administer. But he questioned this logic, saying Human Resources has had to hold hundreds of employee meetings and training sessions in order to implement the new plan.
Human Resources officials could not be reached for comment.
Although the University spent thousands of hours creating the system, officials "made funding for the new plan ... an afterthought," McIvor said. "Without funding this is an evil piece of work."
Michael Mussina spoke as a representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 1.3 million state and federal workers. Mussina criticized the plan, saying AFSCME research shows that the system fails to inspire workers to perform well and that employee review is undermined by funding issues.
"The whole system is meaningless. It doesn't matter how well [you] perform, just how much money there is," Mussina said.
Jan Cornell, a member of the Provost's Employees Council, said she was "very upset that we have to live under this plan."
Cornell labeled the plan "ridiculous" and said she was "sick about it."
She criticized the creators of the plan for not inviting any University staff employees to contribute to the development process.
Biology graduate student Daniella Bell represented the Student Labor Action Group at the forum. "We are horrified by the effects that an undemocratic, unjust payment plan will have on its employees," Bell said.
Julian Bond, history professor and national chairman of the NAACP, said the organization was "reinstating its support" of the Labor Action Group. Salaries are "a true measure of how we value [our employees'] worth," Bond said.
Donald McEachin, a state delegate from Richmond and 1986 graduate of the University Law School, was the last speaker in the forum.
"Elections matter," the candidate for state attorney general repeated throughout his talk.
McEachin said now there is not a majority in the General Assembly willing to adequately fund the new pay plan. He stressed the need for minimum wage workers to vote. "Often the very people you are trying to help don't vote," he said.
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