WSA Pay: A Dissenting Senator’s Take

I am the only WSA senator who voted no to paying myself. Watching a group of well-intentioned senators propose to raise their own pay unilaterally using student money, and then proceed to defend that idea for three weeks, is a little disheartening. Raising our own pay without the express consent of our fellow students is obviously not only entirely undemocratic but also logically inconsistent. In fact, except for FGLI senators and senators on work-study, we should not be compensated at all (more on that later).

I do not for a moment believe that my fellow senators are maliciously raising their own pay in a fit of open corruption. However, I do believe that they are refusing to accept that no matter how good their intentions are and no matter how hard they may work as a senator, raising their own pay unilaterally is questionable. Yes, we work hard. Yes, we contribute valuably to the community. Yes, most of us are motivated by duty to our peers. But since we began paying ourselves in 2022, we also began to post-rationalize self-payment as fair compensation because being paid is awesome. Act, then justify. This is a deeply misguided view. Even with the best intentions in mind, we have led ourselves further and further from the common good.

I should first address that I do not think that no one should be paid—giving stipends to FGLI senators and senators eligible for work-study expands access to a democratic institution which would otherwise be exclusive to rich students. I am advocating that any student who does not fall under those categories should not be paid because it is a waste of money.

Let us consider some arguments that senators have made. First, 165 students, out of around 3,000, first voted to raise senator pay in 2022, and absent those among that group of 165 (say, 42 students) who are now seniors, no student is getting an opportunity to reconsider that decision. Regardless of your opinion on senator pay, there is no good defense for why there should not be a referendum to allow the student body to decide whether or not their own representatives should be given a raise. No senator was able to find any good reason to do so at any General Assembly meeting.

If there is good reason to give ourselves a raise, it follows that we should be able to convince the student body that they should increase their representatives’ pay. Therefore, having a referendum on giving ourselves a raise should not be a problem at all… unless, of course, students think that this is not a good idea. I think the only reason why pro-raise senators oppose a referendum on the raise is because we all know that the WSA would lose that referendum.

The only defense that came close is the republican argument—we were voted in as the representatives of our peers, and therefore we have been given full consent to make funding decisions on their behalf. This is not always true. Importantly, we are the primary beneficiaries of the decision that we ourselves are making. That most senators support this decision is incredibly predictable— their pay increases when they vote to increase their own pay. Only the student body is capable of raising senators’ pay without a clear and obvious conflict of interest. This is why Congress, for example, passed the 27th Amendment. People cannot be trusted to make representative decisions fairly when they themselves stand to benefit at the cost of others.

On whether or not we should be paid, choosing to pay ourselves is a direct trade-off with funding student activities. The Student Activities Fee (SAF) is $414. With just one student’s SAF, the Student Budget Committee could reasonably fund three or four cultural events, sending a small team to a debate tournament, or routine monthly repairs for the sailing team. Paying senators $65,600 per year prevents tens of student activities from ever happening. That means six frisbee teams, eight debate teams, twenty LASOs, and so forth. More importantly, students, especially marginalized students, are cut off from opportunities they otherwise would have.

One response was that this money comes from the WSA Endowment and not the SAF. This argument falls flat as soon as one learns that the WSA Endowment is funded by surplus student funds, and in turn also funds student activities. Furthermore, we are choosing not to deploy freed funds to send money to the endowment, making thousands of dollars for future students and hedging against rapidly rising inflation. These are direct trade-offs.

Senators argue that they work hard. That’s great. I work hard. Everyone at Wesleyan works hard. I understand that senators’ work is work and that their work is valuable, but that is not a sufficient argument for getting paid. My friend Julia, for example, is president of the debate team. She coaches debaters, sends them to tournaments, and expands access to the discipline. Debate coaches work, and are thus generally paid. Therefore, it follows that since she works, the WSA should pay her. The same goes for the captains of the frisbee teams, the president of mock trial, or the executives of LASO. They do valuable work for other students. However, none of these people are paid because they are volunteers. Like any other student leader, just because WSA senators work hard does not mean that they uniquely deserve to be paid.

Moreover, if all work really is the same work, then senators should be paid the minimum wage. But since no one on the WSA seems to be advocating for that, we can assume that senators see that our work is not exactly the same as a run-of-the-mill job. In fact, I argue that the primary function of our stipend, like the Argus Voices Fund or FGLIAB compensation, is to expand access to student government, not to compensate us for volunteer work. So if work is work, which is it? Pay senators, and by the same token all club leaders, the minimum wage, or pay no one at all?

The above points are also in tension with a separate argument that senators only attend the General Assembly in the first place because they are paid. It may be true that the payment pilot program reduced turnover, creating stability within the WSA. It is equally plausible, though, that the pandemic decimated the institutional memory of the WSA, and rebuilding our know-how and relationships with admin has made being a senator drastically less stressful.

However, senators should obviously be motivated primarily by duty to their peers rather than self-interest. This motivation is not reflected in some senators’ actions. While most senators have honorable intentions or have financial need for a stipend, some do not—almost every senator paid lip-service to being in office in order to represent their peers, but as one senator mentioned three meetings ago (and this is the smoking gun), all of us have heard from a few senators behind closed doors that this job is “easy money.”

In my opinion, choosing to pay ourselves a stipend in the first place was wrong. There is a reason why there is no comparable senator payment scheme at our peer institutions in the NESCAC. That aside, choosing to raise our own stipend without even choosing to consult the student body is even more wrong. This decision is undemocratic and unreasonable. I hope we reconsider making what I believe to be a series of fraught decisions at best.

Nicolás Millán Prieto is a member of the class of 2027 and can be reached at nmillan01@wesleyan.edu.