THE UNIVERSITY should implement a living wage policy because it is unacceptable for student tuition and faculty salaries -- let alone the mortar on the John Paul Jones arena -- to be subsidized by the poverty-level wages of a portion of the University labor force.
Notwithstanding claims to the contrary, the University is not prevented by law from implementing a living wage policy. During the past six years, three localities in Virginia -- Alexandria, Arlington and Charlottesville -- have implemented living wage ordinances, and none of these ordinances have been challenged in a court of law.
Skeptics claim that living wage ordinances violate the Dillon Rule, which holds that localities may claim only those powers delegated to them by the state. According to the Alexandria city attorney and other legal experts, however, the Dillon Rule is not relevant with regard to these ordinances because the Virginia Public Procurement Act allows localities to take "best value" into account when awarding contracts.
A majority of Virginia state senators seem to agree that living wage ordinances are constitutional. In 2004, a bill sponsored by Republican state Sen. Frank Wagner that would have invalidated such ordinances failed by a vote of 17 to 23. Wagner maintained that living wage ordinances violated the Dillon Rule, but this argument failed to carry the day even among prominent members of his own party, such as Sen. Thomas Norment.
Just as the Public Procurement Act provides localities with the authority to implement living wage ordinances, so also it provides the University with the authority to implement a living wage policy for its direct and contracted employees. If the state's courts have failed to overturn living wage ordinances, why would they suddenly decide to overturn a living wage policy at the University of Virginia? This is especially unlikely now that the University has, thanks to the Higher Education Restructuring Act of 2005, been granted an unprecedented degree of autonomy from the state.
Despite claims to the contrary, the implementation of a living wage is unlikely to have the negative economic effects predicted by opponents. This is because the living wage is an extremely modest measure that will affect only a fraction -- by my calculation, about one-fifteenth -- of the non-faculty university labor force.
Numerous studies have been carried out on the economic impact of the living wage ordinances that have been implemented during the past decade in over 70 U.S. localities, including Baltimore, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Jose. These ordinances have had no detectable impact on local employment levels or on the revenues and profits of local businesses.
To the extent that living wage ordinances result in reduced turnover and increased worker productivity -- and the evidence suggests they do -- they can even be characterized as "pro-business" as well as "pro-worker."
To be sure, chambers of commerce tend to oppose living wage ordinances. Yet in cities that have implemented such ordinances -- including Alexandria and Charlottesville -- opposition from the business community has all but vanished now that the predicted dire economic effects have failed to materialize.
Will tuition go up if we implement a living wage? Not necessarily. If the University merely reduced the rate of growth in administrative and athletic coaches' salaries -- President Casteen now earns almost $700,000 per year, and two of our coaches earn well over a million dollars per year -- it would be able to cover a substantial portion of the moneys required to implement a living wage policy. Disposing of the University's private jet and requiring administrators to fly commercial airlines also would save a pretty penny.
Last year the University cut a check for $2 million to persuade failed basketball coach Pete Gillen to pack his bags. At the time, I heard nobody in the community demand to know what effect Gillen's extravagant severance package would have on student tuition or faculty salaries. Is it really possible that we can spend this kind of money on our athletics program, yet we cannot afford to pay the most vulnerable among us a living wage of $10.72 per hour? If so, then we need to examine our values no less than our budget.
Jeffrey Rossman is an professor of History.
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