Jon Hochschartner | contributing columnist
jhochschartn@smcvt.edu
About two weeks ago, the University of Vermont (UVM) had a "Tent City" of their own. Demanding a livable wage for all employees on their campus, UVM students tried to occupy an administrative building. After this failed, they camped and protested on the UVM green for four days before being forcibly removed by the police. The demonstration was organized by the UVM chapter of the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP).
St. Michael’s needs a student group like this.
The Vermont Joint Fiscal Office estimates that to cover just basic needs in Vermont, you need to be paid at least $12.37 an hour. A lot of workers on this campus don’t get this much. It’s about time they do.
According to adjunct English professor Kate Gillen, the most an adjunct professor can make in a single year is $16,000 dollars. She continues, “I don't consider my pay a living wage. I'm not exactly sure about the math right now, but if I counted all of the hours I actually work, I think I would make about 7 dollars an hour. I work about 60 hours a week split between my classes at Champlain and my classes here.”
Like other adjuncts, she is forced to work more than one job. St. Michael’s allows adjuncts to teach only a certain number of classes so legally it doesn’t have to provide them with healthcare benefits.
I asked adjunct professor Gillen where she thought the money to pay for livable wages could come from. She says, “I would look at the salaries of top administrators first. Like most institutions, St. Michael's has a very unequal pay scale. I'm sure if I looked at the budget, I would have some other ideas.”
I went ahead and gave her first idea a try. I looked at St. Michael’s tax returns and found the salaries of some of the top administrators. President Marc vanderHeyden’s salary alone—not counting his expense account—is more than that of ten adjuncts. It appears that he works forty hours a week, and receives $172,801 dollars a year as compensation, in addition to $29,280 dollars a year listed under "Expense Act and other allowances." President vanderHeyden did not respond to a request to comment for this article.
The starting wage for custodians on campus is $10 an hour. Again, this is lower than the amount that the state of Vermont has estimated is needed to cover a person’s basic needs.
Jeff Varburen, a custodian here at St. Michael's is understandably dissatisfied. “It’s not a livable wage at all….I can barely afford to live in Burlington,” he says.
This is not justice. At the very least workers at St. Michael’s must be paid a livable wage. We need to organize a student group to fight for worker’s rights and the livable wage on campus. We’ll need at least 15 members to get funding from the Student Association (S.A.). To make real change we’ll need a lot more.
If you’d be interested in joining or supporting a Livable Wage group on campus, please sign up on Facebook. If you don’t have Facebook, email me your contact information. I’ll get back in touch with everybody next semester when we’re organizing it for the S.A.
