University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Perhaps A Merry Christmas Next Year

By JIM RINACA

(A fourth-year Engineering
Student, Mr. Rinaca is
President of the Student
Council.–Ed.)

Since it is almost Christmas
and most students are finishing
up that last paper or attending
that last party before going
home, I would like to take this
opportunity to wish a Merry
Christmas to a group of people
that just about everybody else
at this University seem to have
forgotten – the staff. If there
were ever any Tiny Tinis in
this world that were due a
pleasant dream for Christmas
Dinner, it would have to be
these sorely underpaid
individuals. Their dreams,
however, will only come true if
the state legislature ever gets
around to deciding to give
them an increase in salary
sufficient to meet minimum
standards of prosperity.

It is no secret that the
University has long been the
employer of "last resort" in
central Virginia, and indeed it
is good that the University is
able to employ many persons
who might otherwise be
jobless. What is tragic and,
indeed, downright sickening is
that the University has never
paid its employees salaries
sufficient to raise many of
them above what is considered
nationwide to be the poverty
level.

The University has always
paid its faculty handsomely,
but how about the staff? If we
look at a typical employee, say
an electrician, who had worked
at the University long enough
to reach the top of his pay
grade, he could have expected
to receive a base salary of
$5400 in 1967. In 1972 he can
expect a top salary of $6720.

However, in the period from
May 1967 to June 1972 the
cost of living index has
increased 24.7%. This means
that in 1972 dollars this
electrician's 1967 salary was
$6733. Therefore, over a
period of five years this
electrician who was at the top
of his grade had a net decrease
in his base salary of $33. How
about that for getting ahead in
this world.

To make the picture even
dimmer, this same electrician
who earns $3.23 per hour at
the University could be making
up to $10.00 per hour in
Louisa working on the
construction of VEPCO's
power plant.

Our electrician is one of the
better paid staff members at
the University Custodial
workers at the University begin
at $1.73 per hour and can
work their way up through
years of diligence and self
sacrifice to a whopping big
$2.08 per hour. The pay scales
are not only insufficient, they
are degrading. I have been told
of one worker who had been
with the University for
seventeen years and after those
years came and asked for a
raise because his daughter had
just graduated from high
school and had gotten a job
with a local department store
making $2.00 an hour. She was
making more money than her
father.

The University also has a
great problem with staff
turnover due to the low pay. In
many departments this
institution is able to hire only
the very old or the very young.
The old come here for
employment because the state
retirement benefits may be the
only security they have to look
forward to after retirement
other than Social Security.

Many young people are
employed and trained, but
then they move off to more
lucrative salaries. Many
departments will face severe
problems in the next few years
as the older people retire if
younger people do not stay
and work at the University
after receiving training.

I have observed this
injustice for three years, and
frankly I'm becoming sick of
the whole situation. When the
faculty asks for a raise, Mr.
Shannon and the Board of
Visitors see that they get it.
Therefore, Mr. Shannon, I
remind you of your promise
last summer to work to secure
salary increases for your staff
in the upcoming session of the
state legislature. Your staff and
I are not impressed by your
public expression of concern to
date. Maybe next Christmas
they can have something to be
merry about.

CD/Lisa Tompkins

University Maintenance: "Salaries Considered Nationwide To Be The Poverty Level"