"The paychecks of the lowest-paid University of Virginia employees will be a bit plumper by the end of the month.

The university will raise the minimum salaries of employees in the lowest pay bracket to $9.37 an hour, President John T. Casteen III announced this week. The expected pay raises will affect workers in the academic division and at the UVa Medical Center. The wage increase will not affect workers who already earn $9.37 or more an hour.

More than 375 academic-side and Medical Center employees will receive the raises, which university officials decided to implement after a market survey highlighted the need for UVa wages to keep up with the Charlottesville-area cost of living.

The university in December raised its minimum hire rate to $8.88 an hour, a rate that exceeds the federal minimum wage by about 72 percent and the state classified minimum wage by 30 percent.

But in the months since the $8.88 increase, members of the UVa and Charlottesville communities have repeatedly questioned what they still believe is paltry pay.

“Few university presidents have matched Mr. Casteen’s progressive leadership in achieving racial justice and gender equality,” said Paul Gaston, an activist and former UVa professor. “The movement to eliminate poverty in the workforce, however, has yet to enlist the same bold leadership. Today’s statement encourages me to believe that he may be moving in that direction. Let us hope that the steps he is taking will bear out that belief, for there is no greater cause in higher education today and no one here better positioned to lead it.”

Casteen’s announcement was a victory for advocates of increased wages, said Jan Cornell, president of the Staff Union at UVa. “I think it shows good faith on the part of the university,” she said.

But Cornell and others want more of a commitment from Casteen.

Proponents of salary increases have lobbied the university administration for a “living wage,” which they categorize as at least $10.72 an hour.

On the academic side, the increase of all employees’ wages to at least $9.37 an hour will affect 120 full-time and three part-time employees and 117 “temps.” At the medical center, beneficiaries of the wage boost include 83 full-time and seven part-time employees and 50 temps.

Casteen’s statement emphasized the benefits UVa employees receive in addition to their salaries. At the $9.37 rate, benefits add $3.29 an hour. In July, the value of those benefits will increase to $3.45 an hour.

But Cornell noted, “You can’t take benefits to the grocery store.” The university “throws that in to make it seem like they’re paying $12 an hour.”

Advocates of the $10.72 living wage also have pushed for similar treatment of UVa contract workers. Many want the contract workers’ wages to reflect at least the minimum wage paid to classified employees. Casteen is seeking the opinion of the attorney general as to whether the university can require contractors to pay their employees wages the university sets and if UVa is different from local governments, some of which claim the right to dictate minimum wage rates to contractors.

But some question the need for the attorney general’s opinion.

Public universities “can have standards for their contracts to ensure quality work,” said David Rubinstein, a lawyer for the Virginia Organizing Project, which helps organize local community groups around social and economic justice issues. “They can ask for a living wage for their workers.”

A former attorney general’s opinion suggested that may not be the case, Casteen has said. UVa officials want to know if the law has changed since the 2002 opinion.

The opinion is “not crystal clear,” Rubinstein said, but UVa still “can ask for best practices.”

“There is some question about that particular part of the code,” said former Del. Mitchell Van Yahres. “I think it should be re-examined.”

In his statement, Casteen cites a fear of skirting a law that hasn’t been fully interpreted. “For a public entity to subvert the law is unacceptable in a nation that claims to live by the rule of law,” he writes.

“In the absence of no one telling them they can’t do it, they should do it,” said Joe Szakos, executive director of the Virginia Organizing Project. “It’s the morally right thing to do. People who work full-time should not live in poverty, whether they’re direct or contract employees. [UVa] can do it, and they should do it and quit using a bag of excuses.”

Regardless of the debate, the bump in pay for UVa’s lowest-paid classified workers is encouraging to those whose pocketbooks will benefit.

“I think [the increase] is good,” said Teresa Brock, one of the affected UVa workers. “It’s been at a low rate for a long time. They have to keep up with the economy.”

Szakos believes it’s a step in the right direction.

“It’s a big, big, big important step,” he said. “But we hope they’re not at the top of the stairs yet.”" (Melanie Mayhew, The Daily Progress, March 9, 2006)