Senate Bill #22 unanimously passed, leading to a $1 per hour pay raise to most ASUCD employees
By VINCE BASADA — campus@theaggie.org
ASUCD Internal Vice President Aaminah Mohammad called the Nov. 26 senate meeting, held over Zoom, to order at 6:10 p.m. She then read the UC Davis Land Acknowledgement.
With several senators absent due to prior commitments and other difficulties joining the Zoom, the table moved to pass the consent calendar of legislation while a quorum was present.
Senate Bill (SB) #20, allocating $90 to the Office of Senator Sabah Nabiha for a transfer student event, and SB#21, implementing accessibility requirements for ASUCD websites and social media pages, both passed unanimously.
The table also approved a resolution to urge the US Forest Service to enact the National Old-Growth Amendment, protecting old-growth trees from logging and commercial exchange without issue.
Continuing legislative discussion, the senate unanimously passed SB#22, increasing the hourly wages of most ASUCD workers by 50 cents. It allocates $151,844.12 for the wage increases for the upcoming winter and spring quarters, to take effect in January 2025.
Alongside a previous budget allocation, the passing of SB#22 means that the majority of ASUCD workers will experience a $1/hour raise starting in 2025.
Senator Max Gouvalaris stated a concern after the bill’s passing that the focus of the senate had been on worker retention and not on worker appreciation.
“I think the vast majority of the discussion [over SB#22] was extremely misplaced,” Gouvalaris said. “We are here to support our workers. I’m incredibly alarmed by the tone-deaf nature of [the] dialogue on this bill.”
ASUCD President Gaius Ilupjeu reassured him that the bill’s focus on retention was done to take advantage of university policies that allow ASUCD to increase wages in order to keep workers and express appreciation of the work of all student employees.
“This [raise] is not something we had to do, but we felt that we had to,” Ilupeju said. “Our underlying intention is always to do right for our workers.”
Ilupeju also said he had tried to push through a $2 to $3 wage raise, but was limited by University of California policy.
The senate also passed SB#15 to update personnel bylaws to match current internal practices.
Quarterly reports from the Aggie Reuse Store, the Aggie Arts Committee and the Campus Center for the Environment were reviewed by the table before completing ex-officio and elected officer reports.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:32 p.m.
Written by: Vince Basada — campus@theaggie.org
