Resentment over how the University of Georgia has handled
changes to its overtime policy has created an opening for United Campus Workers, an affiliate of the
Communications Workers of America, who are helping UGA employees angered by the
recent changes that slashed their take-home paychecks in December.
Problems began when UGA reclassified 3,000 of its
employees from exempt to nonexempt to comply with changes to the Fair Labor
Standards Act, which was due to go into effect December 1.
Switching these employees from the university’s monthly
payroll to a biweekly paycheck resulted in employees being paid for only half
of month in November even though deductions such as health insurance premiums
were taken for the full month leaving employees with very small paychecks prior
to Christmas.
Employees have been quoted as complaining about
struggling to cover their living expenses and needing to cash in vacation leave
to make up for the shortfall. Many UGA staff have low salaries that make it
difficult for them to save money for unexpected emergencies such as suddenly
losing a half month’s pay.
While other Georgia public universities have needed to
make similar classification changes, they have had a smoother transition.
Georgia Tech has been repeatedly cited as an example on how the process should
have been occurred.
The damage to morale at UGA, which was already low due to
tight budgets, is creating an opportunity for a labor organizing effort.
Increasingly, labor unions are finding more success at
organizing government workers than those in the private sector.
Nationally, public-sector workers have a union membership
rate (35.2 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector
workers (6.7 percent).
UCW-CWA has been focused on campuses in Tennessee, but
according to the Athens, Ga., Flagpole,
one of its organizers, Tom Smith, is helping the University of Georgia
employees survey their fellow workers on their views towards the change where
3,000 UGA employees were switched from monthly to biweekly paychecks.
Not surprisingly, most of the comments in the survey were
negative, and it is likely UCW-CWA will see this as an opening to begin an
underground organizing effort at UGA.
Complicating the situation, the new FLSA rule has been put
on hold by a federal judge in Texas, meaning it is unclear whether UGA needs to
reclassify the 3,000 employees, which is adding to staff confusion and
uncertainty.
No doubt, UGA President Jere Morehead hopes that staff
unhappiness will fade in the new year, since most employees’ annual pay will
remain unchanged, and they will receive three paychecks during two of the next
twelve months.
While the pay policies will eventually sort themselves out,
the bad feelings will remain and give UCW-CWA an opening to begin quietly
organizing UGA staff under the radar.
