Buddy Cook has been a painter at the University of Missouri for five years. At a rally in February organized by the public employee's union LiUNA Local 955, he joined other members of the city and university maintenance staff to demand higher wages.
"We learn our trade," Cook said. "Whether you're an electrician, whether you're a pipe fitter, there's a lot to learn. And you don't learn it overnight. You give the blood, sweat and tears. And they don't honor that here. They don't pay a competitive wage."
According to MIT's Living Wage Calculator, a single adult without children must make $20.46/hour working full time to earn a living wage in Columbia.
For many custodians, food service staff, and groundskeepers at the university, starting pay is $15/hour. Andrew Hutchinson, a union organizer for LiUNA Local 955, said many are earning around $16/hour.
"The people who cook for all the students, the people who clean for all the students, the people who stock the shelves and make the libraries function 24 hours a day for all the students, the majority of them do not make not make a living wage," he said.
Many work morning shifts starting as early as 4 a.m., when the university's shift differential pay period ends and the university stops paying employees extra for working outside standard daytime hours.
Shift differential policies vary by employer; at the university, standard length shifts are only eligible for shift differential pay if they begin at or after 2 p.m. or before 4 a.m.
Cook is out the door by 5:45 a.m. for his shift at the university, and said it can be difficult to navigate working while students are also on campus during the day.
"Trying to find a sitter at 4 a.m. is next to impossible," said LiUNA organizer and former MU custodian Luke Fennewald. "So these hours really are not conducive to people's social life or family life."
Hutchinson added that the university has cut benefits, such as a 2022 policy change that resulted in 10 fewer days off per year for university employees.
"The university has been going through this slide of not keeping up with the rate of inflation, not keeping up with cost of living, and doing benefit cuts rather than growing benefits," he said.
Mizzou officials declined a taped interview about the latest bargaining process with LiUNA, but said they're committed to continuing discussions with employee groups regarding competitive compensation rates.
Unionized City of Columbia employees earn more
By contrast, Hutchinson said many City of Columbia employees, also represented by LiUNA, already earn $19/hour.
The city took criticism for several years of staffing shortages after the pandemic, but has recently given raises to employees and expanded benefits including paid family and sick leave.
"I do believe they made a concerted effort to make this a better place to work," said Utilities Department spokesperson Matt Nestor, saying the changes have helped with employee retention.
Two years ago, the city's solid waste department had 15 open positions on the collection crew. Now, they're down to only five openings.
As Boone County's largest employer, Hutchinson said he hopes the university will follow the example set by the city.
"If working people are going to have a say in mid-Missouri and are going to thrive, then the economic policy of the university, the hospital and the city are what is going to drive that," he said.
Boone County has a high concentration of public employers, with over 19,000 employed by the city, the university and MU Health Care in 2025.
"In other communities, the businesses would feel like the biggest fish," said Lily White Boyd, vice president of external affairs of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce. "The university always feels like the biggest fish in our community."
Local organizers including Hutchinson and Fennewald are concerned public sector jobs are becoming less attractive in Columbia.
"There are people that are electricians here on campus that just go and work at Hitachi because they're offering a better pay," Fennewald said.
Because public employees don't have the right to strike and aren't protected by the National Labor Relations Act, their leverage with entities like the university and the city is limited compared to private sector workers. According to St. Louis University labor law professor Michael Duff, much of the union power public employees have in negotiation lies in campaigning, organizing, and raising public awareness.
"I don't think the union, at the end of the day, has recourse other than just speaking and trying to exert public pressure by speaking," Duff said.
In their latest push, as well as recent efforts to unionize the university library staff, LiUNA has built on decades of labor organizing by non-academic employees at Mizzou. Before 1966, the university did not allow collective bargaining or union contracts. Maintenance and cafeteria workers walked off their jobs in protest and were ordered back to work by a court injunction, but after negotiations the university curators voted the next month to recognize labor unions as bargaining agents.
LiUNA hopes to begin wage negotiations with the university in April, but exact dates haven't been set.
