AMHERST - Members of four University of Massachusetts Amherst employee unions are angry that they will not receive salary increases and retroactive pay they say they had been promised.

Leaders from the unions have written a letter to Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and President Marty Meehan to complain and are urging members to phone Meehan's office Thursday at 2 p.m. to demand the money.

Unions learned Wednesday they would not receive the increases. Classified workers unions were expecting to see the raises Friday, and members of the Massachusetts Society of Professors were to get them Dec. 14, according to the letter.

"Workers have been waiting eighteen months for these raises. You cannot imagine how upset they are to be told that they will not have their money before the holiday," states the

and signed by

Joe Malinowski, president of AFSCME Local 1776,

Leslie Marsland, president of University Staff Association/Massachusetts Teachers Association,

Eve Weinbaum, president of Massachusetts Society of Professors/Massachusetts Teachers Association, and

Brad Turner and Mary Malinowski, co-chairs of Professional Staff Union/MTA

.

It is unclear why the pay is being held up.

Eve Weinbaum, President, MSP/MTA, in an email wrote "no one has been able to give us an honest explanation of what is happening.

"A battle is going on between the players in Boston -- the UMass President's Office, the Governor's Office of Administration and Finance, and the legislature -- but it is absolutely unfair to hold hostage the pay that is owed to the people who do the work here.

"I feel especially terrible for AFSCME and USA members, some of whom don't even make $15 an hour -- they were told to expect 18 months of retroactive pay in the paycheck they will receive tomorrow, and people were waiting to pay their bills and buy holiday presents for their families."

She said more than 5,000 workers on campus are owed these wages with "many more thousands on the Boston, Lowell, and Dartmouth campuses."

The mass phone-in is being organized "to make sure our message gets through," according to a message posted on the MSP website.

On their website, the unions say the contracts were approved by Gov. Charlie Baker and funded by the state Legislature. They claim faculty and staff have not had a raise since 2016.

UMass spokesman Jeff Cournoyer said the raises will be issued "as the university has received collective bargaining funding" for fiscal 2018 and part of fiscal 2019 "and is confident" that the remainder of fiscal 2019 will be appropriated in the new year."

He said in an email, there was no "supposed to be paid" by date. He said Friday was a possibility but "the current target date for raises to be reflected in paychecks is Dec. 14."