What’s Right and Practical: Liveable Wages at the “Gathering of the Minds”

Published February 26, 2008

By Alex Townsend

Last week great minds gathered, appropriately, at the Gathering of the Minds, where one of the many topics in question was livable wages, the minimum salary a worker needs to be able to get by, and how UVM wasn’t exactly providing them. The gathering had an open-mic forum, so anyone was welcome to express his opinion. In theory the people there could have argued back and forth over whether or not UVM gives adequate wages to its workers, but it was obvious within the first five minutes that that wasn’t what was going to happen.

The room was clearly filled with students and staff members who had already made up their minds that the less prestigious employees on our University’s roster are getting a raw deal. Such student groups as Students Against War, the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), and Students for Peace and Social Justice were present and practically wearing their bleeding hearts on their sleeves. Anyone who might have tried to speak out against them and say that UVM is providing perfectly good salaries thank-you-very-much could only have sounded cartoonishly heartless.

Due to this uniformity of thought, the feeling in the room was reassuring, with everyone secure in the just-ness of their cause. However, there was also the ever-important question of how to get the University to change its workers’ pay. SLAP had previously gotten the administration’s attention with repeated appeals, studies, and eventually even a hunger strike, but all of those tactics had failed to actually get any changes made, though they did show a good deal of determination.

Why were these techniques ineffective? One speaker, Professor Alfred “Tuna” Snyder made several well-reasoned points. He noted that everyone in the room wanted UVM to start treating its workers better, but that isn’t going to happen just because of some flashy stunts. If policy is going to be changed and changed permanently it needs to be because it is right and practical. The University’s administration needs to be convinced that giving its employees higher wages would actually be good for them all.

Professor Snyder went on to outline the various arguments for why the University would benefit from providing livable wages. The first point he made was that when workers don’t earn enough to cover their basic needs they are unable to focus on their work, thus making it unlikely that the University would be able to maintain the appearance it strives for. The next point was about adequate compensation: UVM cannot expect superior work to be done for inferior pay. It’s often said that one gets what one pays for and this is just as true when it comes to employment. Snyder’s next argument addressed the issue of committing to a low paying job — people do not stay at poorly paying jobs if they can help it. UVM workers are likely in the market for jobs that can actually give them an adequate salary. Therefore, in light of the inadequate pay the University has a high turnover rate that’s costing it more money to train new employees. Finally, he discussed how when people stay at jobs longer it pays off with more advanced training. The workers can get better at their jobs, thus become more valuable employees.

Overall, the Gathering of the Minds proved to be a constructive way of discussing many details of the livable wage issue, even coming up with several ideas that should indeed be presented to the University of Vermont’s administration and even the general public. But what will be most important are the Gathering’s results. What will its attendants do with the arguments they have given and so finely polished and how will our administration respond? Will there be a right and practical solution for UVM’s most necessary and underappreciated staff? Will they finally get something resembling fair treatment? Expect more news as it develops.

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