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Take Action for Living Wages and Fair Raises!

Members of UCW met with the Governor's staff on Friday, November 30 and emphasized the need for living wages and fair raises for everyone to be included in this upcoming budget.  Click HERE to send a message to the Governor on this important issue!  It only takes a couple of minutes to let your voice be heard!

UCW has also launched a postcard campaign that is being sent to Governor Haslam.  Email [email protected] if you would like some for yourself and your coworkers to send!

Again, please take a minute to send a message to Governor Haslam about the need for living wages and fair raises.  Click HERE to send a message to the Governor!

Take Action for Living Wages and Fair Raises!

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Wednesday, Nov. 14: University of Memphis Living Wage!

 

To meet the basic cost of living in Memphis a person working full time must be paid at least $11.62/hr*. That's the Living Wage here. Both Shelby County and Memphis City acknowledge this number, and pay their workers a living wage at the very minimum. 

In a recent meeting University of Memphis administrators also acknowledged that $11.62/hr is the minimum pay required to meet the cost of living. 

And yet, many hundreds of University of Memphis workers, custodians and adjuncts, grounds keepers, clerical workers and graduate students, and many others, are paid what is literally a poverty wage. Many workers are forced to work 2 or 3 jobs, or rely on charity or government assistance to get by. 

Poverty wage policies at the University of Memphis are formed by the concrete and legal legacy of Jim Crow in the south. They are also shaped by a national trend to force universities to function more and more like corporations, treating diplomas as a commodity, and workers as just another cost.

Come hear workers speak their story, hear simple hard facts, and decide for yourself. The event is sponsored by 

United Campus Workers, Progressive Student Alliance, and Workers Interfaith Network.

Wednesday, Nov. 14: University of Memphis Living Wage!

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Tuesday, Oct. 16: Community Forum on Domestic Partner Benefits at UT

You're invited to a community forum & mass meeting to discuss domestic partner benefits at UT and in higher education. This meeting is geared toward finding a way forward (in conversation and action) to make this university a more equitable, just and non-discriminating institution. While the administration has dismissed the unanimous Faculty Senate resolution calling for partner benefits and the community's demand for justice and fairness, we want to come together to think of a way forward. UT has a long history of trying to keep the bottom line as low as it can on the backs of its workers, and us workers have a long history of fighting back!

 
Tuesday, October 16th at 5:30pm
12th Floor Conference Room in McClung Tower in Humanities Plaza
UT Campus
Download flyerhere
 

ALL Faculty, Staff, and Student allies are invited to join in solidarity (Alumni are welcome too)! We need everyone to put needed pressure on administration to do the right thing. 
Please pass this along to all interested persons and groups.

It is hosted by United Campus Workers, Tennessee's public higher education union, and its allies.

------Background information-----------------------
Last semester in April the Faculty Senate proposed a resolution in support of extending existing employee benefits for spouses of married couples to same sex couples who, in the state of Tennessee, are not afforded such legal standing. 

Education, leave and health benefits are a few among others that were proposed in this resolution and unanimously agreed upon by all Faculty Senate members. 

Monday, September 24, Chancellors Larry Arrington and Jimmy Cheek finally responded to the resolution with a three paragraph statement that many in the UT community feel was too brief, vague, disrespectful and insensitive.

In one of the more publicized lines of the Chancellors’ response letter, they wrote that the proposal was: "inconsistent with the public policy of our state expressed in constitutional and statutory provisions." However, the letter did not outline which policies or laws they were referencing and how those laws were being interpreted. 

There were a variety of responses: Most notably, faculty members Wanda Costen and Tina Shepardson's interview with Knoxnews.com (1), Commission for LGBT People Chair, Keith Kirkland’s, poignant open letter to Chancellor Cheek an Arrington (2) and student Eric Dixon’s opinion column in the Daily Beacon (3). See links below. 

If you would like to receive the email version of this invite please contact Thomas Walker at [email protected] or the United Campus Workers at 865-329-0085

(1) http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/sep/25/ut-faculty-members-unhappy-with-response-to-same/
(2) http://lgbt.utk.edu/
(3) http://utdailybeacon.com/opinion/columns/fourth-branch/2012/oct/3/denying-same-sex-benefits-troubling/

 

Tuesday, Oct. 16: Community Forum on Domestic Partner Benefits at UT

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Governor Haslam: Campus workers need a living wage!

With surplus revenue carried over from last year, isn't it time to stop poverty wages on our campuses?  Adjunct and contingent faculty have been making the same bad money for years, and many part-time or contract employees don't even see the raise.  Ask Governor Haslam to make eliminating poverty wages in higher education a top priority for his 2013 budget.  We know that real salary increases can move hundreds of workers out of poverty, cover the rising cost of living, and address salary equity issues.

Take action now for a real, fair raise for everyone in 2013!

Governor Haslam: Campus workers need a living wage!