Within the past month, New York University’s Payroll Department has come under fire for its failure to pay a large number of student workers on time. Some payments have been delayed by a week or so, while other students claim that they have not been paid since the start of the semester. In response, students from the University’s student-run NYU Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) conducted protests on campus surrounding the payroll backlog, as well as calling for support of its campaign to raise the University’s minimum wage to $15 (¥ 95.4) an hour.Soon after the issue became known by the public, NYU’s Finance & Information Technology Executive Vice President Martin Dorph sent out an apology email to all student employees. The email read, “NYU understands its obligation and takes it as a point of honor that student employees are paid what they are owed on time. The vast majority of the time, they are. Unfortunately, we know that we have not been flawless in fulfilling this obligation. If you are a student worker who has had suffered a delay in being paid, I want to offer an apology.”It continued, expressing that most students should receive payments within a few days after reaching out to the university. While it explained some of the causes for the payroll backlog -- incomplete paperwork and a “lack of or inconsistent documentation on hours worked” -- it failed to mention the errors in the PeopleLink system that were responsible for the issue at hand. Even still, there are students who haven't been paid since the semester started.Although NYU has started to take steps towards resolving the payroll backup, students are calling for more proactive actions to be taken. In regards to these concerns, Brennan O'Rourke, a sophomore in NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and a member of NYU SLAM’s Outreach Committee, said, “Students depend on getting the money they are due on time. It is like any other job: people are dependent upon receiving the money they made in a timely fashion.”O’Rourke also reported that SLAM has been alerted of incidents of NYU payroll staff “telling student workers [in an email] that if they did not file their work reports within the report pay period they would not be paid. However, we know that even if a report is filed late that does not mean students do not get paid. That is simply illegal. What it is called is wage theft.”Clearly, New York University as a whole needs to address student workers’ concerns at a much deeper level than what is being offered. NYU SLAM’s participation in the Fight for 15 campaign emphasizes this need. “Typically”, O’Rourke said, “at the end of each year, NYU has an approximate $100 million surplus that it chooses to reinvest in whatever is next on the agenda of expansion or remodeling instead of investing in students.” If the minimum wage for fast-food workers is set to be raised to $15 per hour by 2018 in New York, what is stopping NYU?“I think the main message [of the Fight for 15 campaign] is to tell the university that students' work matters - that it should be valued. As New York City and the rest of New York state is in the works of raising the living wage to $15 an hour, NYU should be joining the movement toward economic justice for its students,” O’Rourke commented. “Raising the living wage can alleviate some of the pressure off of students, allowing them more time to focus on their studies.”NYU’s Student & Labor Action Movement is, as described on their website, “a student-led organization dedicated to building student and worker power on campus and around the world. We are committed to human rights and believe in taking direct action to advance social justice.” You can find their website here. This article was written by Katie-Rose Nunziato. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Elisa Rolle