In early February, many employees at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill had a double parking deduction from their paychecks due to university error. Many of these employees are in the lower pay bands at the university, and this error deeply affects their ability to pay their bills and survive to the beginning of the month.
Additionally, employees received a meager 4% raise last year, triggering another increase in parking fees. This further compounds the problem of forcing employees to pay to come to work through parking fees, taking money from already insufficient paychecks. Employees of UNC do essential work in keeping the university open, from cleaning buildings to managing departments to running the libraries to keeping the campus safe. We should not have to pay to work.
The Workers Union at UNC, chapter of UE Local 150 has the following demands:
- Return the double charge for parking taken out of paychecks on Feb. 9. University employees should not be punished for the mistakes of the university.
- A living wage of $20 per hour for all university employees, so that no one struggles to pay their bills and live and work in North Carolina.
- Abolish parking fees for campus workers. No one should have to pay to come to work.
Since receiving our public records request, it is now clear that the University can easily afford to end all parking permit fees for all university employees that earn less than $50,000 per year. In fact, according to the notes from recent Advisory Committee on Transportation and Parking (ACT) meetings, the new 5-Year Plan for employee parking permit fees will increase overall revenue by more than $2 million, while eliminating parking permit fees for employees earning less than $50,000 costs only $1 million.
Join us next Wednesday, March 20 at 12noon at South Building as we deliver our petition to Cheryl Stout, Executive Director, Transportation and Parking, as well as other ACT members.
SIGN AND SHARE THE PETITION TODAY!
See slides below from ACT meetings:
