This week in-brief

CD News Staff

Graduate student workers continue to demand timely payments from the University

The University chapter of United Campus Workers of Virginia, a union for Virginia college and university workers, claims that the University still has not rectified the issue of missing and late payments to student workers in a letter to University leaders. Despite administration statements claiming that the problem has been rectified, the group continues to demand stricter financial policies and an expanded staff to enforce payment timelines.

In the letter — addressed to Provost Ian Baucom, Vice Provost Steve Farmer, Vice Provost Brie Gertler, Assistant Vice Provost Phil Trella and Dean China Scherz — the group wrote that since winter break, University student workers are still missing up to thousands of dollars in pay for weeks at a time. This letter, published March 3, follows action by UCW-VA U.Va. December 2022 when multiple graduate student workers said that they had not received payment for their work, calling on administration to #CutTheChecks in a Twitter movement.

“This [graduate student] labor sustains the University, and we deserve to be paid fairly for it, including being paid on time,” the letter states.

128 graduate student workers and 10 University faculty, staff and students signed the letter, which demands late penalties for delayed payments and an expanded Graduate and Financial Administrators team.

Laura Ornée, UCW-VA U.Va. chapter chair and graduate student, sees the alleged payment issues as representative of the University’s larger attitude towards graduate student workers.

“We know an institution’s values are reflected in its budgetary decisions,” Ornée said. “To truly prioritize paying graduate students workers on time, U.Va. executive administration must adequately staff the divisions responsible for this process and compensate all workers with competitive, livable wages.”

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