Featured photo by Ethan Schmidt
Story by Ethan Schmidt
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MTSU United Campus Workers Secretary Ashton Beatty addressed the Student Government Association Senate on Thursday, urging senators to call on MTSU administration to implement biweekly pay for all hourly workers.
Beatty appeared in front of the Senate after the UCW engaged in a petitioning campaign for biweekly pay last semester, earning 650 signatures and catching the attention of President Sidney McPhee.
In fact, that number increased to 700 signatures the day of the Senate meeting.
“We’ve almost reached 700 signatures on it,” Beatty said on Wednesday while tabling outside the Keathley University Center. “The problem is, it’s digital, and we didn’t collect M numbers, and so, they’ve just let me know that they need 50 M numbers to appear.”
Beatty collected the additional signatures in time to speak before the Senate. The overwhelmingly positive response from the present Senators speaks to Beatty’s ease of getting 50 additional signatures in two days.
“I just wanted to say that last semester, we—as SGA—did pass one of my petitions that I presented in front of you all, but with only 130 signatures from students,” Sen. Victoria Grigsby said. “So this already has 600, 700 signatures? That’s a lot more, and I think that we have a duty—if we have that many students signing something, if we did it for 130—that we should do it for this also.”
Sen. Grigsby also said that, as a student worker with two jobs on campus, she has to wait for a month for her paychecks too. Other senators who work on campus also agreed that the wait for paychecks needed to be fixed.
“I definitely, full-heartedly support getting paid biweekly, because it definitely makes it easier to save money for books and added college costs—and definitely if you need to eat something on campus,” Sen. JP Van Der Hayden said.
Jaxon Gardner, the tech support student worker at the meeting, even responded to Beatty’s address. According to Sen. Jessica Rogers, this is an extremely rare occurrence.
“We’re all students, we have things to pay for,” Gardner said. “It’s very important, and even if I don’t benefit, I know that the students in the future, especially with how the economy is going, will benefit as well.”
Despite the student approval for biweekly paychecks, MTSU administration has made no promises to implement it.
“They are not interested in implementing it anytime soon,” Beatty said.
At a meeting with MTSU UCW members, President McPhee gave a loose timeline of one year for a potential implementation. In a follow-up email sent to MTSU UCW Vice President Spencer O’Neal, the president said that MTSU administration “will explore” switching to a biweekly pay schedule.
As MTSU administration decides if they will implement biweekly pay and how to go about it, the SGA Senate will consider further actions in pressuring administration for biweekly pay.
No one from the Senate has reached out to the MTSU UCW secretary to start drafting a resolution. Beatty plans to email interested senators soon about writing a resolution.
Ethan Schmidt is a contributing writer for MTSU Sidelines.
To contact News Editor Alyssa Williams and Assistant News Editor Zoe Naylor, email newseditor@mtsusidelines.com.
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