The local chapter of United Campus Workers of Virginia met with University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and other leaders on April 4 to discuss issues related to graduate student wages. The meeting was prompted by the union’s attendance at the March 1 Board of Visitors meeting.
Delegations from both UCW UVA and the university sat down at 1:30pm in Madison Hall.
Prior to the meeting’s start, negotiations were already underway over the meeting agenda, according to UCW UVA.
On April 2, organizer Olivia Paschal says she sent university representatives a proposed agenda, which allotted time for introductions, a presentation from the union, questions, potential solutions, and discussion. In an email shared with C-VILLE by UCW UVA, a representative of Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom sent a resequenced agenda at 11:35am on April 4—two hours before the meeting start time—which substantially reduced the union’s presentation time and discussion time in favor of a presentation on progress made by the university. Further, the email stated that the room would be used for another event at 2:30pm, and the meeting needed to adjourn by 2:25pm.
UCW UVA responded with a compromise agenda at 12:02pm, giving time for both delegations’ presentations and discussion time.
During the meeting, attendees reviewed progress made on stipend task-force recommendations by the university, and examples of graduate student workers’ concerns with ongoing payment issues. University officials did not agree to all of the proposed solutions from UCW UVA, but did agree to hold a follow-up meeting with the union.
“We’re disappointed that administrators failed to commit to solving late payments in our meeting,” the union posted on Instagram. The group emphasized the need for raising wages and benefits for Graduate School of Arts and Sciences departmental employees, and said late payment fees should be instituted.
After the meeting, UVA Deputy Spokesperson Bethanie Glover shared meeting notes with C-VILLE, saying the newspaper had previously written about “concerns related to the timely delivery of graduate student aid.” According to Glover, GSAS has processed graduate student payment with a 99.7 percent accuracy in the last year. “The 99.7% accuracy rate that we shared factors in all delivery errors in stipend and wage payments, including incorrect values, delivery delays, student errors such as incorrectly reported account/personal information, and more,” she wrote in an email.
But organizers with UCW UVA claim different accuracy estimates were provided by the university during the meeting. According to a quote from the meeting shared by Paschal in an email, attendees were told by a university official that “our estimation is that about 98% of students are experiencing no problems at all in GSAS. In terms of individual payments, that number is about 99.8%.”
Additionally, an organizer with the union argued that the characterization of graduate student wages as “aid” was misleading. “Some of the issues have been wage issues,” said union member Lucas Martínez. “When you run a business … you [don’t] call what you pay your workers aid.”
While UCW UVA acknowledges the progress made since issues with payments to graduate workers arose in December of 2022, members say current solutions to payment issues are not sustainable and require additional labor from the graduate student worker.
“All of the onus of this problem being solved relies on extra labor being done by the graduate worker, to let them know that they’ve been paid incorrectly,” said Martínez.
At press time, a follow-up meeting between UCW UVA and university leadership had not been scheduled.