For Immediate Release

March 9, 2008

UT Students and Workers Attend Board of Trustees Meeting in Chattanooga, TN

Students and workers from both the Chattanooga and Knoxville campuses of the University of Tennessee are planning to attend the next Board of Trustees' Finance And Administration Committee meeting in Chattanooga on March 11th and 12th.

After the Progressive Student Alliance attended the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees' Finance And Administration Committee meeting in November to request that the committee support fair wages for University of Tennessee employees and consider steps towards a Living Wage for all UT employees, President John Petersen agreed to look into what it would take to institute a Living Wage for the University of Tennessee community.

A Living Wage is a locally calculated wage that seeks to provide workers in that community with a sufficient income that would allow them to meet their family's everyday needs and live above the poverty line. Nearly twenty percent o UT employees make below the poverty line.

In the Annual Report of the President from 2006-2007, Dr. John Petersen claimed that "compensation for faculty and staff was the University of Tennessee's top priority" and that "the University of Tennessee has as a primary mission making life better for Tennesseans. Always has and always will." Where then is the concern for employees of the University who live in poverty?