Our Fight for $15
In June of this year, the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan voted to approve a $15 minimum wage for all temporary and student workers across all three campuses for the 2023 fiscal year. In the eyes of many throughout the UofM community, this was an unexpected yet entirely welcome development. After all, a top-down decision from university administrators that directly improves the material conditions of our student body is hard to come by. The wage increase represented a new hope for students previously struggling to balance tuition, bubbling rent costs, economic inflation, insurance coverage, and other day-to-day expenses, not to mention the need to take on more than one job while simultaneously managing full-time academic responsibilities. In celebrating this news and enjoying its accompanying benefits, however, it is important that UofM community members are made aware of how the decision falls seriously short, and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which its seemingly spontaneous occurrence was actually the product of a year-long campaign developed, organized, and spearheaded by the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA@UMich).
The Fall 2021 semester was a time of power mapping, planning, and strategizing for YDSA. If we were to win a $15 minimum wage by the June 2022 Regents’ meeting, we needed to access as many centers of temporary and student employment as we could manage, capitalizing on the connections and networks of every YDSA member. We spent countless hours listing every employment sector, student organization, and administrative office we thought could be contacted and organized for the purposes of our Fight for 15 (FF15) campaign. We held informational meetings on workplace organizing and listened to other campus labor organizations (e.g., GEO, LEO-GLAM, OneU) as they shared their own testimonials regarding the fight for better wages and proper representation.
By the time the Winter 2022 semester rolled around, our campaign had shifted from strategic planning to bold action. Beyond legislative aid we received from Central Student Government (CSG) and LSA Student Government (LSA-SG), our to-do list consisted of three main initiatives: Regents’ meeting attendance, a student worker townhall, and a FF15 rally.
In attending the university Regents’ meetings every month leading up to the June vote, we were hoping to place consistent pressure on the administration to not only hear our grievances regarding the minimum wage, but also understand that this was a time-sensitive matter in need of immediate action. We encountered a series of hurdles when registering to give public comments at each meeting, but we pushed on nonetheless, finding work-arounds everywhere one was required, and believe me when I say there were a host of them. There were stipulations regarding how many public commenters could speak on the same subject at a given meeting, how many consecutive meetings a given public commenter could speak at, how likely it was for a given commenter to be allowed to speak at a meeting, how long the allotted time to provide a public comment was, etc. It was almost as if the structure of Regents’ meetings did everything but facilitate and center student voices. I spoke at the February 2022 meeting and experienced these bureaucratic gymnastics for myself.
The townhall was meant to provide a safe space for discussions between students regarding wages, working conditions, workplace culture, administrative negligence, and so on. Student workers across many university employment sectors were organized to attend. As a presenter and facilitator of the event, I saw first-hand just how inspired and empowered many student workers were beginning to feel as they slowly internalized the potential inherent in labor organizing. Having obtained the information of all attendees and left them with concrete action items to execute thereafter, we felt for the first time like a movement was brewing throughout the university, one fueled by collective action and an undying desire for basic human dignity.
The rally was meant to cap off a busy year of organizing and serve as a final student declaration prior to the Regents’ vote in June. The speakers slated to attend included a host of YDSA members, a representative from Starbucks Workers United, and Michigan State Representative Yousef Rabhi, among others. Live music and food were also provided. The speeches covered a host of themes and topics, ranging from workers’ rights to the university endowment, to former President Mark Schlissel’s annual salary, to the critical importance of student organizing efforts. If any Regents remained unsure as to whether or not a $15 minimum wage was worth approving, the rally provided a closing affirmation, cementing the view of the student body and setting the stage for a decision in the summer.
The decision the Regents would go on to make is one worthy of celebration, though it is not by any means without its shortcomings.
A $15 minimum wage is a win insofar as it is a noticeable increase in temporary and student worker pay from the previous standard amount of $9.87/hr. However, it is by no means a complete victory in the fight for honorable and dignified university employment. First off, the Living Wage Calculator shows that a living wage in Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn is $19.12/hr, $15.21/hr, and $16.59/hr, accordingly. None of these three wage amounts are accounted for by the approved increase. The June decision is also contingent upon a 2-year-long phase-in period during which the wage increase will be applied to the Ann Arbor and Flint campuses immediately while the Dearborn campus is left to wait until later. Moreover, this period of wage increases across all three UofM campuses will be accompanied by the usual hike in tuition for all students, including those not receiving financial aid. With these numbers in mind, the magnitude of the Regents’ decision takes on a less romantic proportion.
So, where do we go from here? Now that we have the $15 — however partially or incompletely — what do we do? The answer is clear: unionize.
The FF15 campaign proved that a strong student collective led by passionate organizers can yield desirable results. Sure, much is left to be done in the way of subsequent wage increases and improved working conditions. But rather than fighting for a new wage increase every academic year or beg for marginal improvements in university employment ever so often, a robust student worker union will provide university students with the framework, resources, and people power to demand and bargain as we see fit. This is the vision YDSA hopes to bring about in the coming year.
With one clear-cut victory under our belt, we have everything at our disposal to create the kind of change we want to see as students and as workers.
