Poverty Wages at the University of Mississippi
“At the end of the day if we understand that minimum wages are poverty wages, and that even for campus workers that the minimum of $10.10 an hour is not a sustainable wage in Lafayette county by any metric, then the question becomes not an issue of can the University, because the university can come up with all sorts of reasons why they can’t, but the question is should they? Does the University have a moral and ethical obligation to ensure that the people who work on this campus can live in this community and be financially independent? My position is that they absolutely do.”
These are the words of Professor James Thomas. Dr. Thomas is professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi and is teaching students about the social problem’s cycle with hands on experience coordinating a campaign for a living wage for all campus workers, but what even is a living wage?
“The minimum wage is a standard wage set by the federal government first, and then of course state and local governments have different standards. But, it’s understood as the minimum amount of money an employer can pay a worker for an hour’s worth of labor of any kind. I and others differentiate that from a living wage in that what the government says an employer can pay a worker minimally has a huge gap between what that is versus what a worker actually needs to sustain themselves minimally. And so, living wage is a wage that would sustain a worker.”
The federal minimum wage a person can be payed for an hour of work is just $7.25. Working 2080 hours a year, which is true for someone who works 52 weeks a year, 40 hours a week, in other words, full time, an individual will earn a mere $15,000 a year. An income of $15,000 a year is simply not sustainable for an individual, let alone someone with dependents like children or elderly parents. According to the United States Census, the poverty line in Mississippi, or the income level at which an individual is considered to be in poverty, is $21,057. In a similar statistic, the median household income for poverty rests at $39,665 a year. Knowing that the poverty line in Mississippi for an individual is $21,057, some simple math shows that even university employees who make $10.10 an hour or slightly more are only making $21,008 a year. This means that working full time for the Univeristy of Mississippi, even at the above minimum wage level $10.10 people are being payed poverty wages. They cannot regularly afford good wholesome food, adequate shelter and security.
Professor Thomas explains the concept of security, a quality-of-life concept that most of us take for granted. “You need food. Shelter. You need some kind of housing that will also align with security. Another part of security would also be healthcare. And, we also think about things like financial independence: are you going to ever be able to not work? Will you be able to earn and save enough money so you don’t have to work your entire life? You could be entitled to something like retirement, or having savings that you could use to take part in this great thing we call life and all the things it has to offer. So, living wage is a wage that is intended to provide you all of these things, and the minimum wage, fundamentally, just can’t.
We have all sorts of institutional discourse that claims not only who we want to be but who we are, as if it is a given. So this becomes one of those things that stands as glaring contradiction between what our ideals are and what our practices are.“
Words from the University’s creed certainly do seem to sit in glaring contradiction to paying people under its care poverty wages. The creed reads in part: “I believe in respect for the dignity of each person — I believe in fairness and civility — I believe in personal and professional integrity”.
Dr. Thomas was forced to file a Freedom of Information Act request or FOIA request just to have access to files that should be public to begin with. He is seeking information on the contracts between the University and Aramark, a national company with which the university contracts for all food services. Thus, the people who cook our food and serve us are not, technically university employees. Dr. Thomas was forced to pursue the FOIA request after the university responded to mounting claims of inadequate wages.
“We have been given the line that the budget is very complicated and that by doing this it might obstruct where we could spend money elsewhere. They even asked us to fill out an official FOIA request to get information on the contracts that they signed places like Aramark and other vendors even though this would be public record given these are contracts engaged in by a public entity. You can kind of read that how you want. We are waiting still, because we have to process the FOIA data request.”
But who is Aramark, and are food services really all that important here on the University of Mississippi campus?
“Aramark is a very very large food vendor, national food vendor, they are on a number of college and University campuses, they are also on a number prisons. They contract with places like this to offer what we might call streamlined food services. By contracting with these groups it is usually cheaper for universities in the beginning because they don’t have to hire a wage plus any fringe benefits, they also don’t have to hire administration that would oversee all of these services. From Aramark’s perspective the goal is always to have a university lock in long term contracts, 10–15 sometimes 20 year agreements. Where in the process, Aramark begins to say how can I increase my profit margin over this period. Where are the little pieces I can cut, sometimes it’s a reduction in staff, in prisons it was a reduction in food quality. This got them in trouble because they were found to be serving bad things.”
It is worth looking into the issues Aramark is having in some of its other operations.
When I asked students on campus about their usage of campus food, I got a similar story to that of freshman Anika Faruque. She told me that she:
“Eats every meal on campus,” and Mrs. Faruque continued saying “I would call it essential, I rely on it for every meal. I really like the food at the RC South. I like the food at Rebel Market, but I end up eating from Papa John’s a lot because its really close to my dorm and it’s open to two AM. It’s the only place that’s open that late so I go there a lot. Starbucks, I really like their oatmeal.”
What the workers at all the places Mrs. Faruque mentioned have in common is that they are not payed anything near a living wage, and are not receiving fringe benefits. Without work to futher the understanding of a need for a living wage in the University community many people will live needlessly difficult lives in service to the privileged class that have the ability to seek or afford higher education. Dr. Thomas and his class have created and expanded a website with a lot of important information on the campaign for a living wage at Ole Miss. This important issue needs to emerge from the shadows. We are defined by how we react to issues we have direct control over. This issue is a real chance to make a definitive, lasting impact on the lives of our very own community members. We must work to shape the world in which we find ourselves. Together, people are not powerless.
In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
