Union staff pay raise delayed by four weeks
Daniel Montaño | August 26Union staff employees missed out on nearly four weeks of a pay raise, and UNM officials said Human Resources does not plan to reimburse the lost wages. All UNM staff members who are not a part of the union started receiving their raise on July 1, according to University officials, however because contract negotiations between the University and the United Staff at UNM were ongoing, union members were unable to receive the pay increase. All university staff members were guaranteed a 1.9 percent raise by the New Mexico legislature in February, and the Board of Regents voted to increase the raise to 2.5 percent in late March. Jeanette Albany, a union member and administrative assistant for the Communication and Journalism Department, said she contacted the staff council, the union and Human Resources after receiving her first reduced check and did not receive any explanation as to why her check was lessened. All she knew was that she did not receive her promised pay raise and was paying more in deductions, she said. “They were taking all that out, but we didn’t get our raise, so I got a net loss, a decline in my pay,” she said. Albany’s situation is not an isolated incident.
