The Minnesota Daily wrote the first article on the University of Minnesota’s Fight for $15 movement in April 2015, back when the University’s minimum wage for student workers was $7.25 an hour.
After achieving their goal of raising the student wage to $15 an hour seven years later, students looked back on the movement and the impact of the change so far.
The University announced its decision to raise the student minimum wage from $10.33 to $15 an hour Aug. 3. Students can expect to see their first paycheck of $15 an hour on Oct. 19, Ken Horstman, the University’s vice president for human resources, stated in the announcement.
“This is another way to support our student workers and acknowledge the invaluable contributions they make to our campuses in a tremendous variety of jobs,” Horstman said.
The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) has led the University’s Fight for $15 movement for more than a decade, according to Carter Yost, co-chair of the campaign. However, they chose to make advocating for the change a major priority last year after student workers began speaking out about facing financial insecurities due to low wages and stressful conditions.
The University’s Fight for $15 campaign arose from the national movement to raise the minimum wage nationwide, which started in New York City in 2012 with fast food workers walking out of their jobs. USG was inspired to implement a similar campaign at the University.
“This needed to happen quickly and that was our root for organizing this,” Yost said. “Students got on board, and we knew this was something we needed to make progress on.”
Yost said the turning point of the campaign happened in March when several student organizations, led by the USG, collaborated to craft a plan to finally push the University toward meeting their goal.
USG petitioned to get a referendum on the campus ballot to demonstrate student support for the $15 an hour minimum wage. After gathering enough signatures, the referendum was voted on during the spring election.
The Fight for $15 referendum passed with 90% of the student vote, putting additional pressure on the University to raise student worker wages.
Since the wage increase was announced over the summer, Yost said the USG has observed more students interested in applying for on-campus positions.
“I don’t know if I will, at any point, have an impact on campus that is bigger than this,” Yost said. “We’ve impacted thousands of students, and that’s really cool.”
The University has expressed hope that the change would help fill open positions, as they struggled with a significant worker shortage that affected the services provided on-campus in 2021.
“We are confident that both our effective use of work-study funds and the wage increase will help the University fill its student worker positions and help students meet their financial needs,” Horstman said.
However, some students said they think the increase came too late. Bri Strittmater, a third-year student and past student worker, said she found a new job off campus last year because she was not making enough money as a University employee.
“I got a new job so I could make more and actually afford rent,” Strittmater said. “If I was making $15 an hour last year, I’d still be a student worker.”
The fight for higher wages will continue, Yost said, as the “fight for labor rights is never truly over.”
On Oct. 4 and 5, service workers at the University voted to go on strike to advocate for a $20 minimum wage. The strike could begin as early as Oct 22.
“This is not the end of labor movements on campus, nor is it satisfactory.” Yost said. “But it is remarkable progress in the right direction.”
