Classified Staff Union Members testified that they were underpaid for their work at a closed bargaining session Oct. 2, where the union looked to set members’ base pay at $62,000.
The union hopes a pay increase will ensure classified staff and their families can live without the stress of being unable to afford day-to-day expenses. The effort aims to achieve a living wage, which, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator for the Boston area, is a minimum of approximately $62,000 per year for a single adult without children.
Trent Watson, an administrative assistant in the College of Management, wrote in his testimony about the inadequacy of his salary when supporting a family. “Since being employed here, I have not seen a satisfying increase in my pay so much that I had to go out and start driving for Uber to help supplement my income. Driving Uber helped with supplementing some things, but overall, it wasn’t a long-term answer for my income deficiencies,” he wrote.
Lauren Owens, a buyer for the classics and religious studies department, described her struggle with the increase in living costs without her pay raising to match. “From 2016-2023, my pay went up by $7,386, that’s about $40.00 per pay period, an average of .72 cents per hour. My parking in 2016 was $600 in 2023 it was $1,405.53. My car insurance went from $903 to $6000. Health insurance went from $3,939.59 to $5,544.52. Just those 3 instances, I am negative $799.40,” she wrote.
Owens also wrote about her ongoing journey of figuring out her worth to the university. She had found that she was doing work as one person that would typically span multiple jobs, as she detailed in her testimony.
“I first realized I was way under-compensated when a professional staff friend in enrollment management applied for a business manager position in an academic department. She sent me the job description and said it sounds like a lot. I read it and realized it was only a portion of my responsibilities. That department has 3 administrative staff, 2 professional and 1 classified, to spread the same work I do,” Owens wrote.
As someone who has worked at UMass Boston for 30 years, Owens said she deserved better than her existing role at the university and filed for a promotion, which went nowhere.
“It has been two and a half years since I submitted my first upgrade request since 2003. I was told that it takes a while for HR to get back to staff, so don’t expect to hear anything for months. To my surprise, a little over a month later, I received a letter denying my petition. Not only was it a denial, but my name was spelt wrong, (and) it had the wrong job title,” wrote Owens.
Owens’ testimony was not the only one to mention frustrations with the university’s refusal to promote or give raises to classified staff members. Financial aid specialist Darryl Dardy’s testimony is another example of this, where he described discontent and frustration with his position and its lack of movement.
“It has never been my desire to stay in the same position for so long, but work has become stagnant. From the upper tier of the university to office directors and management teams also working in a learning environment, these individuals lack the aptitude or ability to create a learning environment within their offices for staff to move from classified to professional. It is as if those individuals desire to create a caste system where upward mobility offers do not materialize unless you are bootlicker or sycophant of the person controlling the hiring,” he wrote
Dardy, a Boston native, started working at UMass Boston in 2000. In his testimony, he wrote that gentrification has led to the cost of living skyrocketing, but pay is not increasing to match.
“The classified staff is not expecting to make six figures like a lot of individuals at UMass Boston; I know so because the state website lists all our salaries. But achieving a living wage should be possible for us, just as it is for others. We can all eat, but what we eat and when we eat depends on the people sitting at the negotiating table playing hardball,” Dardy wrote.
Watson wrote that the campus would not be able to function if the classified staff decided to strike. The union and the university have not yet reached a new bargaining agreement.
Richard Russo, an instructional media specialist in the facilities administration department, wrote in his testimony about how his pay is already 40% less than the median salary for his line of work, and still has to pay for many of the benefits he was promised would be “worth it.”
Wrote Russo, “Beacon Magazine had an amusing cover recently. The Chancellor, the ‘New Era’ for UMASS Boston. The same guy who makes $540k a year and has not one, but three reserved parking spots on campus. Does the Chancellor pay for parking? This ‘New Era’ needs to begin with ‘New Wages.'”
This article appeared in print on Page 1 of Vol. LVIII Issue V, published Oct. 21, 2024.
