Although they function more or less as a separate corporation, the Associated Students of the University are in reality a ramification of Oregon’s educational system, and their employees should be subject to a sliding-scale salary reduction identical to that recently imposed upon faculty members by the state board of higher education.
No time should be wasted by the finance committee and executive council in passing an order to this effect. The latter group recently restricted the Emerald, baseball and track in order to reduce expenses, so it should welcome with open arms an additional opportunity to trim the budget.
Because Chancellor [W.J.] Kerr and his colleagues on the faculty are to sustain wage cuts, we see no valid reason why proportionate reductions should not be imposed upon the graduate managers and others hired by the associated students. If the executive council reacts favorably to the Emerald’s suggestion, the editor of the paper and several other executives of the publication will suffer reductions along with the rest. However, that matters not, and at least those connected with the editorial side of the Emerald are glad to take the initiative in recommending such a move.
These are troublesome times. A period of economic transition and adjustment has engulfed civilization and no group can afford to demand higher proportionate salaries than its contemporaries. Many learned men, scholars who occupied long years and spent thousands of dollars preparing themselves for careers in education, have received drastic salary cuts this year. It is no more than fair that the employees of the ASUO should sustain reductions parallel to those suffered by these individuals.
We now await action by the executive council in this matter. It should not await action by the executive council in this matter. It should not be long in forthcoming. The state board of higher education minced no words in reducing the pay of its workers.
 
Editor’s note: This editorial was taken from the
Jan. 11, 1933 edition of the Oregon Daily Emerald to
commemorate the University’s 125th anniversary.