Carrying signs calling for a "Living Wage Now!" and urging community members not to "take injustice lying down," Charlottesville community organizations held a press conference on the steps of Madison Hall yesterday to show their support for the Living Wage Campaign.
The press conference is part of a series of weekly student, faculty and community rallies which have occurred the past three weeks demanding the introduction of a $13 dollar minimum wage at the University, said second-year College student Carl David Goette-Luciak, a member of the campaign.
Charlottesville resident and former City Council candidate Brandon Collins read from a letter detailing the campaign's requests, which he then delivered to Nancy Rivers, University President Teresa A. Sullivan's chief of staff.
"We feel like the time is now to come together as a community to send a strong message that the community is ready to stand by students and workers and the call for a Living Wage at U.Va.," Collins said.
Sullivan responded to a faculty petition and letter the campaign delivered to her office last week while she was at an unofficial meeting of several Board of Visitors members last Friday.
"Our challenge - mine, yours, our Board of Visitors' - is to consider all of our priorities, and to try to balance all our financial demands, including funds for faculty salaries, staff salaries, hiring additional faculty, providing financial aid to students, providing health services, upgrading facilities and much more," she said.
Collins, however, said he is disappointed by Sullivan's response.
"It was a fairly empty statement that really doesn't address the demands that the community called for," he said.
Reading from the same letter yesterday, Collins said the University needs to remember the impact it has on the Charlottesville community, particularly housing prices.
"As you surely recognize, the University affects the cost of living in Charlottesville in major ways, particularly with respect to housing costs," Collins said.
The University is also Charlottesville's largest employer and sets an example in the community for other businesses and organizations, Collins said.
Kirk Bowers, a Charlottesville resident and member of the campaign, said the city's residents have been working toward a living wage since the 1990s.
"The most valuable resource at U.Va. is its people, [and] as such we need to give them a break," Bowers said.
The University currently has a $10.65 minimum wage, which has increased 65 percent since 2006, and the number of employees earning less than $25,000 is half of what it was last year, according to a University press release.
Ten organizations signed the letter addressed to the Board and Sullivan, including the Charlottesville-Albemarle NAACP, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Cville Workers Action Network and Richmond General Membership Branch IWW, according to the Living Wage letter.
Collins said many organizations also expressed their support informally.
The campaign set a deadline for Sullivan to respond, demanding their requests be met by tomorrow.
"...[R]adical change is needed and it is needed now," Goette-Luciak said in a speech at the event. "We have struggled as a community for fourteen years and today we say: fourteen years and not one more!"
Collins said the group plans to voice its demands next week when the Board meets.
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