A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison employees, ranging from graduate teaching assistants to custodians, gathered on campus on Wednesday to protest for higher wages.
Barb Peters was among the employees at the march. She has been working in food service at the university for more than 30 years.
“For the past six years, we’ve lost money while we were working our butts off here. It’s time for the administration to pay us back,” Peters said, addressing the crowd.
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The protesters say that increased student fees and health care costs have contributed to smaller pay checks in recent years. Peters said more than 400 workers at the university, working jobs in food service, gardening, cleaning and as animal lab technicians, don’t make a “living wage.”
A living wage in Madison, as defined by the city’s finance department, is $12.45 an hour.
Darrell Bazzell, the vice chancellor for finance and administration at the UW-Madison, said the university’s hands are tied when it comes to raising wages for many of the campus’s low-wage workers.
“Right now we lack the legal authority to simply adjust the pay ranges,” said Bazzell. “They’re part of a state system. We don’t control that system. And that system, in its current construct, doesn’t allow for a living wage for certain job titles.”
He said the university plans to adjust those wages this coming July, when it takes over control from the state.
Bazzell also pointed out that graduate teaching assistants’ wages were increased two years ago and again this year. Further pay bumps aren’t feasible, he said, due to tight budget constraints.
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