Members of the United Campus Workers Southeast – Communications Workers of America Local 3821 union organized in front of Denny Chimes at noon on Wednesday to deliver a cost-of-living-adjustment petition to the Rose Administration building, but the union was stopped at the door and was not allowed to proceed further.
Members of the UA chapter of UCWSE, as the union is known, have called for “a flat $5,000 cost-of-living-adjustment of all workers and an increase in hourly minimum to $20 to account for years of inflation.”
Fred Smith, an organizer for UCW Alabama, an organization advocating for better working and living conditions for students, staff and faculty, said the petition received just over 1,000 signatures from April 2024 to Aug. 2025. Of those, 90% were employees at the University, while the rest were from other communities across the country.
“We are sick and not able to afford to go to the doctor, we can’t afford our medication, and we are having to go to food pantries to get food,” said Abi Diaz, a graduate student studying creative writing and a member of UCW. “The University has billions of dollars in their endowment that they just do not ever touch, and it grows and grows and grows.”
The University’s endowment at the end of Fiscal Year 2024 totaled nearly $1.4 billion, according to the University’s annual financial report. Endowment funds typically carry restrictions on how they can be spent, such as for specific scholarships, professorships and fellowships.
Diaz suggested an alternative to possible tuition rises and budget cuts needed to grant what UCW is asking for.
“They could make cuts from the highest paid staff’s salaries in the president’s office, and give us raises which would make a huge difference,” Diaz said.
Minimum wage at the University is $15 an hour as of January 2023. Alabama’s statewide minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour.
Joseph House, a graduate student studying creative writing, said he is being paid $19,000 across 9 months and that he has had to get a second job.
“A lot of my time is being diverted away from my teaching job, and I’m not able to focus on doing my best for my students.”
He said the union was expecting to be stopped at the door but he said he was “hopeful to make some leeway into a conversation about increasing wages.”
“We are not calling for UA to raise tuition or cut programs but to find money in their endowment,” said Alex Pieschel, a web developer for the University and a member of UCW.
Pieschel said pay isn’t the only issue and that the University needs to “reinvest in higher education.”
In a UA News release, the University said that beginning with hikes to the minimum wage in 2022 through increases in the spring 2025 semester, “there have been over 2,600 pay increases applied to staff positions outside of annual merit-based raises. That represents a total investment of more than $5.5 million to improve compensation for both exempt and non-exempt staff members campuswide.
“These latest compensation adjustments better position UA to retain and compete for talented staff who play vital roles in helping our students reach their greatest potential,” Susan Norton, senior associate vice president and chief human resources officer, said in the UA News release.
Norton declined to respond to emailed questions, instead deferring to the UA Division of Strategic Communications and saying she forwarded the inquiry to the division. Strategic Communications did not comment in time for publication.
Anthony Willing, a doctoral student studying English literature, said that UCW had already previously delivered a petition to the UA System Board of Trustees to increase wages June 6.
“They were not very receptive to it. They did not want to do any work on their end to investigate further,” Willing said regarding the UA System Board of Trustees.
“But the primary goal is just to continue to raise awareness, to hopefully get attention from the administrators, especially President Mohler,” he said.
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