On Nov. 14, members of the United Campus Workers union marched to Centennial Hall to demand change. They delivered a petition, which has allocated over 500 signatures, with five demands – raise the wage floor for workers, adjust compensation so that no GSU employee makes more than 10 times the lowest paid full-time employee, establish fair pay parity practices for part-time faculty, raise graduate worker stipends to a living wage and a commitment of a percentage of GSU’s budget each year to salary equity adjustments. Before the march, organizers of the UCW held a meeting to discuss the situation that campus workers find themselves in and why the demands laid out in the petition are necessary to ensure that those who teach at and maintain GSU are getting back what they put in.
In a meeting held by organizers, information was revealed from an open records request showing the university’s financial position. In 2023, GSU made 102.72 million more dollars in revenue than in 2022. This has come following harsh cost-cutting measures – since 2017, university expenditures for part-time and limited-term faculty have been cut nearly in half, which has increased class sizes and offsets the workload onto full-time faculty and graduate students.
Graduate students are particularly getting the short end of the stick – with over half of all graduate students receiving a stipend of less than $1,000 per month. These stipends are in place to allow graduate students to focus on their studies, yet many graduate students shared that they’re forced to take up second jobs just to make ends meet – something that PhD students are disallowed from doing. These stipends also must be used to pay for health insurance required at GSU, and premiums for that insurance have been raised this year, which has counteracted standard of living wage adjustments made by the university.
Pay inequities also exist across racial lines, despite GSU’s stated commitment to equity. Those at GSU making over one hundred thousand dollars a year are predominantly white, while 61% of those making under one hundred thousand dollars a year are people of color. Black workers account for 44% of those making under one hundred thousand a year, and 65% of workers who make over two hundred thousand a year are white. The UCW also reported that only 2% of GSU workers receive 10% of all salary dollars at GSU. President Brian Blake himself is part of this 2% – his salary for 2023 was reported at $813,700, meaning he makes more than 10 times the amount of 68% of the full-time workforce. These pay inequities apply to graduate student stipends as well – as stated earlier, more than half of all graduate students receive a stipend of under $1,000 a month, while 2% of graduate students receive stipends of at or over $3,000 a month.
The petition drafted by the UCW hopes to shift GSU towards a path where staff, faculty and graduate workers are invested more heavily. The UCW has been successful in their efforts in the past at improving conditions for campus workers – in 2021, members of the University of Georgia UCW chapter succeeded in removing special institutional fees and additional charges of up to $450 required for graduate students. Their current petition was delivered to Centennial Hall to be handed off to Brian Blake himself, though the organizers were turned away and told to deliver their petition to the Department of Legal Affairs.
