I work for a pretty small city University that will go unnamed. I've worked with a student office on campus that is a pretty integral part to how the campus operates for students and outside visitors. We are very understaffed (even moreso during our summer, when we cut the staff in half outright), and our new manager is very slow in bringing on new hires. Most of that is caused by the corporate hell that lives above him, an office that answers to the president of the university, oversees staff (as well as student staff) and manages payment for their offices.
The fiscal year supposedly just ended for this office and they have been recently trying to “rehire” the staff, a process that just involves a few sheets of paperwork for everyone to pretty much put a few signatures here, there and everywhere. Very simple process, it would seem, for everyone except the HR and Payroll offices. On monday of last week, the last week before the pay period ends and we get our paychecks the following week (this week), we get into contact with HR and Payroll that we need the paperwork required to rehire the staff. Literally takes until Friday with no response from HR/Payroll offices for our managers to poke them about it again. They just so happened to not be in their office on that friday, a day we are all supposed to input our timesheets by for the end of the week. Problem is, because of the rehiring process, none of us can access the timesheets and get our hours logged to get a paycheck. We needed that paperwork to re-access the online portal, but of course, HR and Payroll was seemingly nowhere to be found on friday. What's more, on the following monday (yesterday), they also were not in their office at all and hadn't answered our manager's phone calls! Fantastic.
So where we are at, is that HR and Payroll royally fucked up in doing paperwork so we could get paid on time. No other answers from any of our managers (or their managers) besides “the end of the fiscal year,” delaying our checks. This is not just our office that is being affected, either, because of all student offices being grouped together under the same paperwork category. In short, most if not all offices with student workers are being fucked over on their paychecks. This is a repeated issue that happened roughly the same time last year, too, and I would know, as I again have worked here for years. It is incredibly frustrating to be spit in the face by the very same people who claim student staff to be so invaluable, telling us that we are “Students first, workers second”
A lot of us are talking about organizing some sort of walkout or unified protest. I'm posting this here because I have a good feeling others here would have some sort of insight or if anyone has been through the same. What should we do if this continues? We all are pretty broke college students as it is, to put it pretty blunt. It sucks that most of us take out loans to afford tuition just to get fucked even more by the people who handle our money.
tl;dr – university hr and payroll offices fucked up paying student workers by being outright avoidant of paperwork and communicating with other offices on campus