Thomas* is a direct employee of U.Va. who says that many of his co-workers are in dire situations. “I think we should have a food drive for U.VA. employees. I think that students should collect school supplies, and food and clothing to distribute to employees…there are people who would take that. There are people who need that. There are people who work full-time at U.Va. and go to the food bank to get food. I know a lot of people in the department where I work who would be happy to take that. I know guys making $20,000 a year trying to raise kids who just aren’t making it.” While U.Va. touts ‘wage progress,’ Thomas points out the basic issue that confronts a lot of employees.  “The problem is that so many workers get locked into the low wage that stays there… you end up losing ground financially because of inflation and such… and so a lot of people are making less money then they were making years ago.”

Why aren’t more employees speaking out? Thomas told the Campaign: “U.Va. doesn’t do a good job of tolerating dissent…Do I feel safe speaking up? To you, as anonymous person, I do… but to speak publicly would mean not doing what I do anymore.  I would be singled out and dealt with…  We can expect to be retaliated against without question. There is no fallback position for a lot of people. The University is it for a lot of people.” Throughout the interview, Thomas repeatedly emphasized his desire to remain anonymous. He goes on: “There is no collective bargaining, there’s no worker’s voice and anyone who makes a lot of noise sees the door… it’s the little guy against the giant and the University has all the good cards and they play them. They weed out people that are a problem.”

In his time at U.Va., Thomas has seen U.Va. contract out more and more to private employers. He tells the Campaign that “it absolves the University of responsibility for anything. It is a great back-door way to be doing everything that used to be done by salaried people with healthcare on the cheap. This is a move that I have seen in the years that I have been at U.Va. It is an unconscionable thing. I don’t understand how U.Va. can defend that position… another thing you see is more and more temporary workers who remain temporary workers without benefits of any kind for years and years.”

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Thomas notes the huge divide between U.Va. values and its behavior. “Aren’t we supposed to be the shining beacon on the hill. Aren’t we supposed to be better here? That is one of the reasons that I thought it would be good to work here… the ‘caring community,’ President Sullivan talks a lot about the caring community… let’s close that gulf between principle and practice. When you have these lofty goals, but you don’t live them, it doesn’t do anybody any good. What good are U.Va.’s values if we don’t live up to them?  Hundreds of hundreds people are just scraping by.”

March 1, 2012

Chrissy* has been working at the University for less than ten years – but the whole time has been stressful. She explained to the campaign “they don’t know how to treat you right.” Most of her co-workers are stressed out, continuously discussing the amount of pay. People who live within the Charlottesville area and outside of the Charlottesville area discuss the same struggles. People, man or woman, black or white are all stressed out for the same reason. Why? Because the pay is horrible. The wage should be better, as the University has the ability seen in the size of it and its other projects and priorities. But Chrissy lives paycheck to paycheck like many of her employees and gets the lowest wage. It’s difficult to find other jobs, especially during this harsh economy and especially while supporting a family.

But while supporting her family, her children has to help her pay her bills – otherwise, she would not be able to do it. There are opportunities for 2-3 hours of overtime, but it’s not worth it because the commute is so long and the pay isn’t enough of an incentive. Why doesn’t Chrissy speak out? After the last academic year, the campaign explains to Chrissy that the University released a “Freedom of Speech” statement protecting University workers rights to speak out. University administrators also told the Campaign that there would be a concerted effort to publicize this “Freedom of Speech” statement to employees. To Chrissy's knowledge, there has been no effort by the University to publicize worker’s rights to speak out. Also, when discussing with Chrissy about the “pay hike” from last summer, Chrissy explained that many of the people who have been working here longest did not receive the hike because of a loophole in the payment system.

February 29, 2012

Maya* begins her interview with “Overworked and underpaid”. Maya, a contracted employee, admits that working at the University would be better if employees procured more respect from their superiors. But employees are often told to do more, are hassled more, and given less and less benefits as years develop. She explains that when she started at the University she was paid $2.50 and promised an incremental raise every year. But as that promise has been broken, she feels disrespected simultaneously for no one taking her seniority into account. She is often supervised by individuals both younger and less dedicated in her opinion.

She feels pride in her job and her relationship to the students she serves, but disappointed in her employer. She explains that she has seen them throw away applications of Charlottesville residents who have previously worked at the University and explains it within the context of racism and classism. She believes that men get more opportunities and the chance for more compensation but also gives stories of where men were unrightfully terminated for nuanced situations. She feels that state employees are treated better, and even though she may receive slightly more take  home pay, they receive more respect and benefits. She believes that she is somewhat being cheated, which is wrong because she truly is loyal to her employer and to the students.

February 28, 2012

Lynd* is a contracted university employee working for over two decades. She works two jobs.  Lynd starts her story off by explaining that she worked at another location on Grounds, but was moved to her recent location under false pretenses and little choice. Not only was she given no choice, her hours were dramatically changed making it harder to make her hour commute home every day. 

She explains that the contracted employer makes it clear that employees do not work for the University, therefore do not deserve the same benefits as direct hirers. But this relationship is muddied as many of the state hired employees are somewhat convinced to work for the contracted employer.

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She attributes most of the institutional disrespect to the contracted employer and UVa for lack of hindsight. She also attributes issues of respect to supervisor/managerial level staff who often refuse to train employees for higher positions. And although she acknowledges her lack of education, she also acknowledges the amount of hard work many of the employees put into running the University. Though she does not work for the University directly, she stays under her contracted employers to serve the people and students because she enjoys doing so. She also noted that certain contracted employers on grounds take special advantage of immigrant employees who lack English speaking skills. She says that male and female employees in her bracket are disrespected on the same level. Most of these critiques she says have procreated more recently, as nationally the contracted employer has a better reputation, but locally they have deteriorated.

February 27, 2012

Justin* works at a dining hall as a contract employee for the University. He is a full-time worker and a single father of two small children. For a decade, Justin has worked an average of 45 hours per week at the dining hall, but he no longer earns enough to pay for babysitting and other family expenses. As a result, Justin has taken on an additional 25 hours per week at a second job. The exhaustion of working seventy hours a week leaves him with almost no time or energy to participate in his children’s upbringing. Justin draws strength from reading the Bible daily, but “it’s hard not to feel stressed from trying to make the money stretch so far each month.”

February 26, 2012

Susan*, a U.Va. worker interviewed by the Living Wage Campaign, is evidence that employees often stay at entry-level pay for years. Susan has been working at the University for twenty-three years, but she still works for $10.14 an hour. She is beloved by the student community whom she has served diligently maintaining their academic buildings. She says: “It’s not like I don’t want to move up the income ladder, but there’s just no way to really do it. There’s a class that you can take if you get nominated for it, to get you an extra few cents an hour, but that’s it, that’s nothing. I have to work overtime to keep up with my bills… I’ve seen the University change, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the people up top keep making all the money while we [workers] don’t see anything.”

February 25, 2012

Rachel* works on the janitorial staff at U.Va. “I’ve been working for the university 25 years… When I first get here I have to clean 15 rooms in 30 minutes. I have a pager. 30 minutes for lunch…If you’re on lunch and the pager goes off you gotta go and clean a room, sometimes it’s just 15 minutes…as I’ve been here there aren’t enough people. We get worked so hard. You need two people to a floor but there’s only one…The supervisor said you have to clean more, but my friend, she asked for help…the stress tires you out. The crew leaders, the supervisor, they don’t work with us, they just push us. The day I couldn’t get enough rooms done I got written up. They wouldn’t appreciate that I was helping a friend with an overload. It’ll make you snap. It’s sad. I got written up 15 times. Everyone gets written up, you can’t do all the work. I got headaches I was stressed all the time. I had a headache every day I was at work. When I started there, there were 15 people while I was working there then there were 6 people working there… Being up on your back, pushing you.

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Now, Rachel works at a U.Va. academic building. Her situation isn’t much better. “We need at least 14 people and we had 14 when I started working, now there are only 9. We 9 do the work of 14 people. The supervisors here at least say “do what you can do” and tell us just to do the essentials when it gets late. They still say do everything you can. I haven’t gotten a raise since I started here. It’s not fair for us hard working people. The bigshots get raises but they aren’t working like we’re working.”

February 24, 2012

Grace* used to work for U.Va. as a contracted employee and was active with the living wage campaign during that time. “Do workers feel safe speaking out? No…one of the reasons I left is because I saw a lot of injustice. I spoke out at a lot of meetings and things. I knew that soon they would fire me. One of the things is that I had an hour for lunch, so…I was asked to speak at a living wage rally.” She made sure that she spoke during her lunch hour so that she couldn’t be accused of misusing company time. She had to call in outside advocates to protect herself. “About two weeks later one of the supervisors called me in and wanted to know if I was doing it on company time… I had to bring them a copy of my time sheet and the whole nine yards… what I do on my lunch hour is my business. People I worked with saw me go through all that and that’s why they didn’t want to speak out. They say we don’t want to go through all that. They’re not going to jeopardize their jobs…”

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Grace, an African American woman reflects on the racial climate of U.Va. “What you have to understand is that the University… I still view the University as a plantation. You have several people who are in charge. You have the powers:  Board of Visitors, supervisors… even if the President has good intentions, who is monitoring to make sure the good intentions trickled down to those plantation masters…the field workers aren’t going to speak out. Same thing, different century.”

February 23, 2012

Sam* has been working for the University for many years. He has two kids and even though he is grateful for the stability his job provides, he is forced to work a second job on top of his full-time job at U.Va. to provide for his family. Sam told the Campaign that “by not paying a living wage, the U.Va. community is stressed by the amount of employees having to work a second and even third jobs, reducing the job market even further for student workers who are just starting to work…stressed workers are more likely to have health care issues and accidents and have less time to spend with their family… over 80% of the employees in my department work second jobs.” Sam feels that employees are discouraged from speaking out. He says that “most of the U.Va. workers feel their voices will be ignored or that there will be retaliation for speaking out…U.Va. needs a union to give employees backing when they have a grievance.”

He has seen his cost of living rise and the amount of work expected of him rise with no rise in pay. Sam says “our cost of living is increasing and it is causing more stress and even an apathetic attitude in the worker, actually costing U.Va. in lost production… every year in our department we have more territory to maintain, yet the staff quality and number have not gone up, causing more stress on those who care about their work and undoubtedly more accidents.” When asked how we could live up to our ideal of a ‘caring community,’ Sam said, “just paying a living wage would be a huge improvement.”

February 22, 2012

Elizabeth* has been working for the University for almost thirty years. Yet she is still being paid only $10.14 an hour. Management has moved her several times from full-time positions at the hospital to part-time work in an administrative building, back to a full-time position cleaning an academic building. Instead of designing strategies to keep Elizabeth’s wages artificially low, the administration should strive to provide Elizabeth with the respect she deserves. Elizabeth told the Living Wage Campaign that “even a small raise could help me support my sister and mother. My kids are grown now but they can only be asked to do so much for us. I always expect a raise is coming, but it never comes.”

February 21, 2012

Joseph*, a U.Va. employee was a contracted worker for Dining Services: “They were only paying me $9 an hour with no benefits. It all broke down when my wife and I had our first child. She stayed at home to take care of my baby daughter, and since my work at U.Va. provided our only income, we could hardly pay for food. So my mother-in-law was having to buy our groceries for us, even though I was working for Dining Services handing out food at a buffet. The worst part of it all was that we had no health care, no nothing. Eventually, we had to declare bankruptcy.” Joseph now works in U.Va.’s academic buildings, often putting in 14 hour days.

February 20, 2012

Martha* works for U.Va. through a subcontractor, which means that she sees none of the benefits (health, higher wages) in working for a public employer. She is one of the hundreds of people that U.Va. willfully ignores and refuses to take responsibility for. The lack of transparency and accountability of U.Va. contracting practices mean low pay and poor conditions. In fact, she makes only $7.50/hr even though she has worked for the company for years. She has no health benefits of any kind and even she has to pay for her own uniform and parking! Even the managers of this company only make $9.50/hr.  All the employees are afraid to speak out because they are afraid to lose their jobs.

February 19, 2012