Many of the 27,000 employees working for the University of Arizona can expect pay raises soon.
UA President Robert Robbins announced Thursday in a campuswide memo that the UA will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour for staff and $14.50 for student workers, effective July 1.
In addition to raising the minimum wage, the university will also update its staff pay structure based on market analysis and implement a fiscal year 2024 salary increase program, which will include guidelines for across-the-board and merit increases for eligible staff and faculty.
The scheduled pay increases are part of the UA’s “ongoing efforts to retain its talented workforce and recruit competitively, while ensuring sound stewardship of our finances in a changing labor market,” Robbins said.
Raising the minimum wage at the UA to $15 an hour comes more than a year after Tucson voters approved a ballot measure to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, which the UA has to adhere to. UA employees were already scheduled to get bumped up to a minimum of $13.85 as of Jan. 1. But now, workers employed at the UA will get to $15 about 18 months sooner than expected.
The push for higher wages comes as workers struggle to keep up with an inflated cost of living.
Over the past year, residents of Tucson have, like people across the country, experienced price hikes for basics such as groceries and housing.
That’s why the UA-led chapter of the United Campus Workers of Arizona has spent the past several months calling for a $25 minimum wage for all UA employees.
While Robbins’ announcement of a $15 minimum wage is still a long way off from $25, the union, which represents numerous faculty and staff at the UA, said it’s a start.
“This increase comes two years earlier than promised, undoubtedly in response to UCWAZ living-wage advocacy,” said Sandy Soto, president of the UA’s UCWAZ chapter. “But we also know that more is needed, especially as record high inflation continues to disproportionately impact low wages workers.”
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator, a single adult with one child living in Pima County would need to earn $30.73 an hour to make a living wage in Tucson.
“The cost of living in Tucson has increased significantly, and a living wage is no less than $25 an hour,” Soto said. “We will continue to organize and fight for thriving wages for all campus workers.”
Stella Heflin, a founding member of UAZ Divest, speaks to the crowd at a rally on Sept. 23, 2022 at the University of Arizona Mall. UAZ Divest is a student-led group calling on the UA Foundation to divest its $82 million in fossil fuels by 2029.
