Fed Up With Low Pay and Administrative Boondoggles, UGA Employees Unionize

When thousands of lower-waged University of Georgia employees went into the holiday season with only half a paycheck last winter, Joseph Fu decided enough was enough.

"Staff and even faculty are extremely weak in this establishment," the UGA math professor said. "It seems like faculty… are treated with almost open contempt."

Fu is now leading a newly formed United Campus Workers union at the university, in hopes of giving a voice to underrepresented staff members.

The widely criticized transition in pay schedules last fall was the spark behind the idea, Fu said. A proposed change to the Fair Labor Standards Act last year raised the threshold for overtime compensation to $47,476 a year, meaning anyone who made less than that was eligible for overtime pay. Under state law, anyone eligible for overtime pay must be paid on a biweekly basis, so over 3,000 employees at UGA are now paid every other week rather than once a month. (Courts and the Trump Administration have put the FLSA rule on hold, but the new pay schedule remains in effect.)

Read more: http://flagpole.com/news/news-features/2017/11/29/fed-up-with-low-pay-and-administrative-boondoggles-uga-employees-unionize