Rather, he said changes were already planned early last spring during support service committee meetings. The committee comprises hourly workers and administrators. Bottoms' letter outlined the 2000-'01 salary raises for hourly employees. All employees got a four- percent wage increase. And full-time hourly employees also received an equity raise, based on years of service and current hourly wage.
Equity raises increase a worker's wages to reflect the differences in years of service.
Since the government has consistently raised the minimum wage, new workers have started off closer and closer to their elder employees. The University periodically gives an equity raise to correct this. In each department, we want everyone with the same years of service in the same job to have the same amount of pay. But often times, senior workers don't see a large increase in pay. Because of that, the gap between the wages of long-term employees and new employees has shrunk.