UW-Madison would not be legally required to abide by a proposed city minimum wage standard of $7.75 an hour, according to Ald. Austin King, District 8.
A coalition of community members, including King, is trying to collect enough signatures to put the minimum wage increase on a ballot referendum Feb. 17. Organizers of the effort have tried to pin down Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's stance on the issue, but they have not actively pursued Chancellor John Wiley's, King said.
\Because the university is not directly affected by this ordinance, they're certainly a little lower on our list of people to contact than say, the mayor,"" King said.
UW System spokesperson John Lucas said Wiley and the university have not come out with a position yet, but may assert one in the future because an increase could affect many students employed in low-wage jobs in and out of the system.
""We're going to reserve the right to kind of see how it develops and maybe have a position on it as it goes farther down the line,"" Lucas said.
Gov. Jim Doyle told the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board Friday the proposed hike would ""Balkanize"" simultaneous efforts to raise the state minimum wage to $6.80 an hour. King said the university would have to abide by an increase in the state minimum wage but not that of the city.
""The city doesn't have direct legislative authority over the university, or not nearly as much as we'd like,"" he said.
King added he thought the proposed increase would still influence university employees because it would force the university to remain competitive in the wage market.
But Susan Fischer, associate director of student financial services, said the average student worker already makes more than $7.75 an hour.
The average campus wage for non-work study students is $8.60 an hour, Fischer said, and the average hourly wage for work-study students who work on and off campus is $9.20 an hour.
Fischer added that campus employers currently abide by a wage minimum of $6.95.
UW-Madison junior Katie Quaintance said any increase in wage would help her. She works in the Open Book Cafe in College Library and in the Memorial Union Deli at $7.50 an hour for about 30 hours a week.
Quaintance said she uses her money to pay for ""everything,"" including tuition, rent and food. Even though she makes a quarter less than the proposed minimum, she said she sees how the proposal could create problems for smaller businesses.
However, she added, ""From a student perspective, it would help a lot to be making more money.\
