Over 100 students, faculty and community members gathered at the Rotunda yesterday to call upon the administration to pay the University's lowest-paid workers what supporters term a "living wage."
The rally was organized by the Living Wage Campaign at the University of Virginia, which puts the minimum living wage as $10.72 per hour in the Charlottesville area, a figure that the group suggests should be indexed for inflation. A referendum will appear on the student election ballot this month asking students whether they support such a proposal.
Since December 2005, non-student full-time employees have received a minimum of $8.88 per hour, Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, wrote in an e-mail.
Former University History Prof. Paul Gaston told the crowd that the $10.72 wage is necessary to counter a growing income gap between the highest and lowest paid employees at the University, which is wider now than ever before.
"Bearing witness where wrong has been done is what this living wage campaign is all about," Gaston said. "A university should not be a mirror image of the worst features of our nation."
Gaston compared this battle for workers' rights to the civil rights movement, saying "there may be no Fourteenth Amendment for the poor, but this living wage movement is endowed with every bit as much moral clarity that infused the 1960s civil rights movement."
Religious Studies Prof. Corey Walker said the living wage effort will benefit society as a whole.
"It is in solidarity with our comrades," Walker said. "We don't want to see any person live an inhumane existence."
Economics Prof. William Johnson, who did not attend the rally, noted that raising the wages of University employees could have several effects on the Charlottesville area.
"If you pay a high wage, you have a greater choice of workers to choose from," Johnson said, noting that the people who the Living Wage Campaign hopes to help may not gain as much as expected from a wage increase, as there will be more competition for jobs.
Following the rally on the steps of the Rotunda, the participants walked to President John T. Casteen, III's Madison Hall office to deliver copies of the Living Wage Campaign's report. Casteen was not in his office, but participants left notes asking him to raise workers' salaries.
The figure of $10.72 comes from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute's seven criteria of housing, food, transportation, taxes, child care, health care and other necessities, student activist Kevin Simowitz said.
Sandridge noted that an increase in salary for auxiliary employees, those working in departments such as housing and dining, would have to result in increased rates paid by students, faculty, and staff, while raises for other employees would receive funding from state appropriations, increases in tuition, patient revenues, or private funds, depending on the nature of the services provided.
Sandridge said the University's current salaries are competitive in the local region.
"Effective in December 2005, our lowest rate of pay for entry level positions is 172 percent of the federal minimum wage," Sandridge stated. "We offer a very competitive wage for those positions when compared with other local employers."
The University also offers an "extremely attractive" benefits package to employees, including health insurance and retirement benefits, Sandridge added.
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