The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

UW students protest for higher wages

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College students tend to be known for not having a lot of money. A lot of the time they don't even have enough quarters to do laundry.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are trying to put a stop to that by pressuring their administrators to pay students with campus jobs a living wage.,”

College students tend to be known for not having a lot of money. A lot of the time, they don't even have enough quarters to do laundry.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are trying to put a stop to that by pressuring their administrators to pay students with campus jobs a living wage.

According to university spokesman John Lucas, students that work on UW-Madison's campus currently make $9.03 per hour on average. A student's hourly wage can be anything from the minimum wage of $6.95 per hour to the maximum $19.05 per hour. A living wage would require that all student workers make $10.23, which is the living wage defined by the city of Madison. More than 7,000 of UW-Madison's 42,600 students have on-campus jobs.

The issue of a living wage for student workers first came to UW-Madison in 2005, when the student government, the Associated Students of Madison, tried to pass a referendum. The 2005 referendum was thrown out but reintroduced in fall 2006, when it passed.

"Our tuition has increased more than 50 percent over the past three years," said Ashok Kumar, a junior ASM representative and member of the Student Wage Committee. "Higher education is a lot harder to pay for."

In March, University Chancellor John Wiley formed the Student Wage Committee to review UW-Madison's student wage structure. The committee consists of university officials associated with student workers and two ASM representatives.

Another student representative, Nick Limbeck, a senior, said university officials on the committee, who manage the university's main forms of student employment, continually come up with excuses to not have a student living wage.

In the letter creating the committee, Wiley said that while he supported the living wage concept, he felt students did not qualify because they are not supporting families.

"Our position has not changed," said Lucas in an e-mail. "We understand that students are pinched by tuition increases and we're sympathetic to that. But we're directing our limited resources to raise the wages of those employees most in need of a wage increase who may be supporting a family. Most students don't fall into that category."

Apart from the committee being formed, the university has taken no other action to implement the referendum.

"(The administration) is showing us that they're not willing to listen to students," Limbeck said.

In response to the university's lack of action, Kumar and Limbeck sent an open letter to Wiley last week, demanding that the living wage be instated and that the university establish a way for student employees to bargain for better wages and benefits.

"We're not very optimistic (about getting a response)," Limbeck said.

Kumar and Limbeck have yet to receive a response to their letter, but they plan to reiterate their demands at the next Student Wage Committee meeting on May 3. Limbeck said they will use the reaction they receive to determine if they need to take further action.

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