RECENT suggestions that the Living Wage Campaign is dying seem based upon the amount of coverage the Campaign has received in The Cavalier Daily, rather than upon the actual activities of the movement. It is clear, from several mistaken assertions that have recently appeared on this page, that many of those writing about the Living Wage Campaign have little familiarity with the Campaign, or with the issues confronting the University's low-wage workers.
Claims that the University is a decent and humane place to work ignore the fact that the University's poverty-level wages prevent workers from enjoying a decent and sustainable standard of living as soon as they clock out, to say nothing of the myriad on-site incidents which suggest something other than fair treatment of staff by their employer. In similar fashion, the idea that people continue to work for companies that contract with the University because the local economy is a "fair and competitive" environment reveals an unwillingness to honestly examine the climate for workers at the University and in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area. Working for the University is often more a result of it being the area's largest employer and less because people are clamoring to work for the University in particular.
In addition, workers in our region attempting to live with the inflated costs of living on such low incomes often find themselves forced to work two or more jobs to maintain a decent standard of living.A lack of adequate transportation or the time to search out alternate jobs, even if they were available, traps workers from leaving the University in search of better employment. These structural factors keep more employees working for the University than the mythical "fair and competitive" environment. An employer as large as the University should set an example for other businesses in the market by fairly compensating its workers. The University's newest line, that it is the "employer of choice in the region," is particularly sad given that we are committed to being "world-class" in so many other respects. It's time to live up to our own standards.
The suggestion that the University has a positive impact on employment opportunities in Charlottesville and the surrounding area is rather shortsighted. The assertion that the creation of jobs that pay less than a living wage is a laudable accomplishment is quite misleading -- in a city with a 3 percent unemployment rate and a 25 percent poverty rate, we don't need more jobs; we need better jobs: living-wage-paying jobs. Figures like these show that significant numbers of persons in the city of Charlottesville are employed full-time and still living below the poverty line. It is unacceptable to celebrate the creation of opportunities for work before current employers are held accountable for underpaying workers to the point of poverty.
The University has embarked on a Capital Campaign to raise $3 billion and the Living Wage Campaign is not attempting to derail the Capital Campaign's laudable goal of raising money to better the University. The Living Wage Campaign does question and challenge the priorities of a University willing to raise enough money to reconstruct a significant portion of its campus while failing to compensate its employees fairly, even when such compensation would cost significantly less than the building project. We encourage people to donate money to the University if they so desire, but only when the University demonstrates itself to be a just and responsible steward of those donations. The entire premise of the Living Wage Giving Fund, which asks students to withhold their donations to the University until all workers are paid a living wage, is to allow students to financially support the University in a manner which encourages the University to become a more just employer.
We have a deep and systematic problem at our University: Administrators and members of the Board of Visitors fail to take responsibility for ensuring that employees are paid adequate wages. Despite their example, the Living Wage Campaign continues to be about ensuring that every single worker at the University of Virginia -- full-time or part-time, classified or contracted -- earns a living wage. The Living Wage Campaign isn't "dying." It continues to grow in sustainable and intentional -- albeit quiet -- ways because, unfortunately, some workers here are not treated respectfully or paid decently. When they are, the Living Wage Campaign will have worked itself out of a job, but until that day, people of conscience will continue to unite in the interest of a fair and safe workplace.
Kevin Simowitz is a third year in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is an organizer with the Living Wage Campaign.
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