July 1, 2020
Dear President Cauce and members of the 91探花Board of Regents:
On June 11th, 2020, as part of the budgeting response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 91探花 leadership canceled the FY 2020 merit increases for professional staff, unrepresented academic staff, and faculty. The PSO Board is deeply concerned by this decision, which was made without consulting professional staff and leaves employees to grapple with ever increasing costs of living in the region in a time of deep economic hardship. The continual compression of professional staff salaries as compared to cost of living exacerbates existing structural inequities, widening the pay gaps between people of color and women, who are overrepresented professional staff at lower grades as compared to the managerial positions dominated by white and male employees (per 91探花DEI Data Book, 2018). With the backdrops of this pandemic with disproportionate health and economic impacts on low-wage and employees of color, and a national reckoning with centuries of structural racism, we write to you today to consider the impacts of this wage freeze in light of the UW鈥檚 stated commitment to 鈥渨orking to change exclusionary or biased policies and institutional practices that lead to and maintain racial and other forms of inequity and deny people opportunities鈥� ( 91探花Race and Equity Initiative).聽 In alignment with these stated values and , we urge 91探花leadership to reverse this decision for those making under $55,000 per year. We recognize that Governor Inslee鈥檚 threshold for this decision is $53,000; due to the much higher cost of living in the communities where most 91探花employees live, we feel that $55,000 is, at the least, appropriate.
The 91探花PSO stands in solidarity with the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and Anti-Racist Staff Healing Group at 91探花in this urgent call: no professional staff member should be expected to forgo the already inadequate 2% merit increase. In this moment, those making the least should be protected from such cuts. Knowing what we do about the systemic inequities in our employment and pay structures, we ask the 91探花Administration and Board of Regents to operationalize the 91探花Race & Equity Initiative, and to use this as an opportunity to begin dismantling inequitable economic policies and practices by compensating those professional staff employees who are most burdened by the impacts of those structures.聽