What group constitutes the greatest percentage of the staff employed by UW-Madison? Is it Faculty? Graduate Assistants? Academic Staff? Classified Staff? In fact, it's none of these. All of these are dwarfed by the number of student hourlies on campus.
There are almost as many student hourlies as all the other staff combined. Students fill roles as diverse as checking IDs at the NAT, repairing library books, serving you food, helping keep the campus computer networks up and running, and making sure people get home safe late at night.
But of all these groups, student hourlies are the only ones with no rights or representation. Faculty have tenure, classified staff have Chapter 230, which governs relations between state employees and their employers. Even academic staff and graduate assistants have some measure of protections (though not enough by any means).
Why is this? It's not because students don't depend on their jobs as much as other workers. For many students, this is a major part of how they pay tuition and afford to stay in college.
It's not because students are less important, or more replaceable. Can you imagine what the state of the university would be without the labor from students on campus?
It could be because the most student jobs are shorter term than other groups. But some students stay in their job for the full four years that they are at the university. Many more stay for two years or more.
If something were to happen at your job, such as getting fired for expressing a political view someone took issue with, or because of something that your co-worker did and pinned on you, what would you do about it? Do you know who to appeal to? And what would you do if that person refused to listen to you?
Almost none of the students I asked had an answer to this besides to simply move on and get a new job, no easy feat given the current campus employment opportunities.
To compound the problem, student workers are paid terribly. The median wage for student hourlies is $8.50 an hour. Given that rate, if you were to work to pay tuition it would take 70 hours a week of work. Over a thousand students are paid less that $8.00 an hour; some are even paid $7.25, the federal minimum wage.
We now have a unique opportunity to change this situation.
The last Wisconsin budget bill included passages which instruct UW-Madison to reconstruct the Human Resources System. This means over the coming semester, UW-Madison faculty, staff and students will be rewriting the personnel rules. This is a perfect chance to create solid protections for student hourlies on campus.
The Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC) and ASM are launching a kickoff event and training for the campaign for student workers rights on January 28th, 2 p.m. TITU. It will feature Joe Richard, a recent university graduate that has worked on student rights and labor organizing.
Stop by if you want to get involved, get trained, have suggestions or ideas, or simply want to discuss the issue or tell your story. It is imperative that students take this opportunity to better their workplace conditions for not only us, but for future generations. We need to ensure that all students can pay for rent, tuition, and other rising costs, and ensuring well-paying jobs is part of that.
Simon Fondrie-Teitler is a sophomore and former intern with the Associated Students of Madison and a member of the Student Labor Action Coalition. Allie Gardner is Chair of the Associated Students of Madison. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
