STARKVILLE, Miss.— Josh Dohmen helped graduate students get health insurance at the University of Memphis when he was a part of a labor union as a graduate student. Now he’s an assistant professor of philosophy at the Mississippi University for Women living in Starkville, Miss., where he is fighting for living wages at another university: Mississippi State University.
“There’s absolutely no reason that everyone working can’t make enough money to get by in the community where they live,” Dohmen told the Mississippi Free Press on May 1.
MSU should pay all of its full-time workers at least $24 an hour, members of the MSU chapter of United Campus Workers of Mississippi argued as they protested on campus on May 1. The demonstrators said the university should also give 12-month stipends of at least $31,200 after fees to graduate students and adjust for the cost of living by 2.5% yearly.
Union members said 500 MSU employees make less than $24 an hour, or under $48,297 annually—the salary that the Economic Policy Institute says would fulfill a “modest yet adequate standard of living” for a single-parent household in Oktibbeha County.
Dohman said many state leaders worry about brain drain or educated Mississippians moving out of state after graduating college, but will not increase the salaries for jobs to keep residents in state.
“If you can’t pay people working at the institutions who help our citizens be well educated—if you can’t pay them well enough, then it’s unclear to me how you’re actually concerned with brain drain,” he said.
Working for Living Wages
Members founded MSU’s United Campus Workers labor union chapter in 2022. United Campus Workers has chapters at 13 institutions across the country, including chapters at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
The MSU chapter penned a petition in August 2023 to garner the attention of university leaders, and the petition hit its goal of 500 signatures in April 2024.
MSU United Campus Worker member Patricia McCourt said the MSU chapter had been tabling monthly on the Drill Field with a tent and table since August 2023 with no problem. But she said on May 1, Associate Dean of Students Tabor Mullen stopped the group before they set up their table and said they could not set up a tent, table or chairs because they were not a registered student organization.
The graduate student said Mullen handed them a printed copy of the university’s free speech policy that said speech, “including expressing viewpoints and holding signs in hands” is an allowable activity, but sleeping, camping or setting up chairs, tents and tables on the drill field is prohibited.
“It looks incredibly similar to a document that was posted by the University of Florida just recently in response to all of the protests going on around the country on college campuses about Palestine,” McCourt told the Mississippi Free Press on May 1.
Union members marched with a 12-foot banner that included the petition and the signatures printed on it to MSU President Mark Keenum’s and Provost David Shaw’s offices in Lee Hall along with a paper copy of the petition.
“This was the most widely and deeply felt issue on campus when we began talking with our colleagues and other coworkers, people just don’t get paid enough,” McCourt said
Who Benefits From Current Wages?
Patricia McCourt, who is an MSU graduate assistant for the history department, gave several suggestions for how the university could increase workers’ salaries. She noted that Keenum and Shaw make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year and see consistent raises while some non-tenured employees struggle to pay for necessities. President Mark Keenum makes $800,000 a year and Provost David Shaw makes $426,400 a year, Open the Books data shows.
“There needs to be more funding for higher education at the state level because public institutions get their funding from the state Legislature, so what we’d like to see is the state of Mississippi stop divesting from public education and put more money towards that,” she said. “We don’t want to see tuition increases.”
The State pays for half of Keenum’s salary and the MSU Foundation funds the other half. Associate Professor of Political Science James Chamberlain said the university could freeze the administrators’ salaries until all employees make at least $24 an hour.
“It doesn’t sit right when you see some of the salaries that the administrators make in these positions when basically, without the faculty, the grad students—without the instructors, cleaners and the people who maintain the buildings—there would be no university,” he told the Mississippi Free Press on May 1.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Sid Salter from the Office of Public Affairs for a response to the petition, but he said the university had no comment.
