Even though University of Wisconsin student voters passed the Living Wage initiative in last week's Associated Students of Madison election, the implementation of the initiative might not actually be possible.
According to Vice Chancellor of Academic Staff Darrell Bazzell, students do not have the authority to change university employee wages. Bazzell also said the Living Wage initiative's advertising misled students.
"My concern right now is students might not have been aware of what they voted on," Bazzell told The Badger Herald Tuesday.
The Living Wage initiative, supported by the Student Labor Action Coalition, calls for student employees at the Wisconsin Union, University Health Services and Recreational Sports to receive a living wage, defined as the hourly figure city officials deem necessary to provide for a family of four.
Bazzell said the lack of discussion about the fiscal implications of the Living Wage initiative and the reasoning behind giving student employees a living wage left voters uninformed of the real consequences of the initiative.
By passing the Living Wage initiative, Bazzell said, UW students supported a suggestion but no concrete action. He also said the authority to alter university employee wages lies with UW's chancellor, and ultimately with the UW System Board of Regents.
"Students don't enjoy the authority to approve those budgets," Bazzell said. "They have the authority to advise the chancellor, but they don't have the authority to give the thumbs up or thumbs down — and I'm not sure students understood that the referendum was advisory, not binding."
SLAC representative Ashok Kumar, however, expressed a different view Tuesday. Kumar said that the initiative is, in fact, a binding contract for UHS, Recreational Sports and the Wisconsin Union.
"We're setting this as a requirement that they pay all their workers a living wage," Kumar said.
Unlike the Student Union Initiative, the Living Wage initiative did not specify where funding would come from. Instead, Kumar said, where that funding comes from is up to the university.
Kumar suggested they can request funding in their budgets or make "administrative changes," but reiterated that SLAC set the initiative as a requirement.
Kumar added the Living Wage initiative was intended as a way to show UHS, Recreational Sports and the Wisconsin Union that they need to "abide by the demands" of the students if they want to keep receiving student-segregated fees.
Bazzell, however, said students are not who city officials intended to receive the living wage because, for the most part, they are not supporting a family of four.
If the university were to pay all student university employees such a living wage, Bazzell said, it would cost the university an additional $6 million a year, which would increase in sync with the city's living wage standards.
He also said if the university were to pay living wage only to those student employees referenced in the Living Wage initiative, it would cost the university an additional $900,000 a year, which translates to $189 a year added on to student housing fees.
Bazzell said it is very unlikely the university would receive funding from the state Legislature to fund such increases in a time with increasingly tight budgets.
"These are costs the state is not going to bear," Bazzell said. "What we need to do is have discussions, share some of the issues that are on our mind and see where that takes us."
Incidentally, Bazzell said, should the initiative ever be incorporated, student employees would not receive the commonly cited $10.23 an hour, but rather $10.62.
The federal living wage is now $10.62 an hour, and come January, Bazzell said, the living wage in Madison will also be $10.62 an hour.
Since the Living Wage initiative would be effective next year, if implemented, student employees at the Wisconsin Union, Recreational Sports and UHS would be paid $10.62 an hour.
