TO STAFF:

Reading Virginia's e-mail - someone told me today Virginia that our
Personnel Dept. should be on contract?

Thanks to all for the phone calls and e-mails.  The issue we are looking at
is the salary for the staff and what we are going to do about it.  We are
not talking about Faculty, or Administrators - this is for us.  We do have
to take care of ourselves although everyone probably needs/wants more money
- the truth is we really need to be brought up to a standard so we can live.
I do believe the whole thing started when the Chancellor gave such a raise
in salary to his new assistant and from there .............       Of course,
this is going to blow over, everyone has what they want and we are going to
be in the same boat as before.  When we start looking at unions this might
bring up more than we bargained for - as being told ---we need to do
something that is manageable.  Although I know for a fact without the union,
flight attendants would be working for nothing.  We want this university to
be something that this community is proud of and we want to be happy working
here.  There are so many issues that everyone has its unreal - but we are
each human, this is life and we each have to deal with problems.  So we need
to take the big issues that concern all of us as a whole and deal with them
one at a time.  I would say the first problem that Staff needs to deal with
is Salary.

I really believe that getting a group of staff together to work on this
issue - and getting us caught up in salary with the rest of our peers is the
feasible thing to do.  We are not Faculty or Administrators - we have our
own issues.

We need a committee of staff that will speak up and work hard with everyone
supporting them.  We need someone that will take action and I am sure that
there are a number of staff  on this campus that can do this.   Maybe we
should have Staff Meetings such as the Faculty has meetings?  We need our
own e-mailing address.   We need to find out what the salary is of other
universities, or other secretaries in the state, or janitors, maintenance,
etc. and concentrate with the problem at hand.  Go to the Chancellor with
our findings - no matter where the money in the budget is allocated, someone
with clout can put that money wherever he/she wants to.  We all know this is
a fact.

I am not against others getting pay raises.  I want all in this campus
community to be able to live well.  Maybe the administrative salaries are
lower than others, maybe the Chancellor's salary is lower than compared to
others.  I don't want anyone to do without.  BUT it is time that working
action be taken by the staff at this college so we can survive.  If we let
this opportunity go by this time without doing something, we will end up as
before.  And before you know it years will have gone by and here we are and
no one else is going to look out for us.

Thanks to all of Staff for your comments  - but -  if this means anything to
any of you, now is the time for you to do something constructive about it.
Thanks again for your time.

Donna

a fair and competitive salary for all