UT Austin and Texas State launch their campaigns, other campuses across Texas soon to follow
[JUNE 2019] In 2003, the state Legislature passed off responsibility to university Boards of Regents for giving employees pay raises. As a result, many Texas university workers haven’t seen an across-the-board pay raise in over 15 years. TSEU members, however, have been at the forefront of the fight for decent pay and to restore state funding. With the need for raises still as urgent as ever, and the Legislature once again shirking their responsibility to enact raises, union activists at UT Austin and Texas State University are building campaigns for an across-the-board raise on their campuses.
We know that the State of Texas, UT and Texas State University Boards of Regents, and all the other state university systems have the money to pay us our fair shar. For example, UT Austin has a $31 billion endowment, and both the UT and the Texas State systems acknowledge that average pay is well below market value. But we can’t count on them to do what’s in our best interest. As front-line state employees, we have to organize, educate, and mobilize! To win pay and compensation increases for all staff, faculty (tenure and non-tenure track), and graduate workers, union members are working on petitions to the Boards of Regents for substantial across-the-board pay raises. There’s power in numbers, and this is one way to build that power and show the powers-that-be that university employees are united!
Union members at Texas State University and UT Austin are making plans now for a Fall pay raise push when the school year begins again. Petitions to administrators and Boards of Regents similar to the ones being circulated at UT and Texas State can be adapted to any campus for a local pay raise push. If you’re a public university employee or student and can get involved, contact Sol Weiner at sweiner@cwa-tseu.org.