Campus staff members rally for increased wages

University of Montana staff members aren’t being paid enough to make ends meet and shouldn’t be viewed as an expendable workforce, said a UM staff member at a campus rally.

“For seven long years I had to supplement my University income by working a second job,” said UM academic adviser Karen Blazevich during the Thursday rally to increase staff wages. “Poor departments cannot help their staff, and the campus is either unable or unwilling to make this process easier for departments to address their staff’s needs.”

Kathy Crego, a representative for the Montana Public Employees Association, the group that put on the rally, said she hopes the event sends a message to the Board of Regents and administrators on campus that UM staff wages need to go up.

“The lowest paid employees on campus are making only three dollars more than I did 32 years ago,” Crego said.

Throughout the numerous speeches, dozens of supporters held signs reading “excellence is also living wages” and “University of Montana staff, heart of the grizzly.”

Blazevich said a dedicated workforce on campus starts with its staff.

“We are a stable work force on campus and we need to be paid as such,” she said. “We are not a dime a dozen, and to keep assuming that is only hurting the integrity of the university system. We need to be able to afford to work here.”

Crego said that 70 percent of other employers across the state have a higher base pay than UM. Custodians on campus make $8.25 an hour, while other regional universities in states like Idaho or Wyoming pay $11.08, she said.

A proposal to begin negotiations with the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Board of Regents for increasing staff wages has been sent in and will hopefully begin within the next few weeks, she said.

Candy Holt, Director of the University Center, said that the university needs to start practicing the principles they teach by taking action to raise wages.

Svein Newman, a member of the campus group Students for Economic and Social Justice, said he came out to support the rally because staff members “do so much for us everyday, the least we can do is come out to support them.”

In the past few years, the group SESJ has focused largely on issues including workers’ conditions in sweatshops and factories in third world countries.

“As students,” said Newman, “we often tend to focus on global problems and injustice abroad and often overlook problems that are staring us right in the face – problems in our community and on our campus and I think this is one of them.”

carmen.george@umontana.edu