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about SLAP | STUDENT LABOR WEEK OF ACTION | CAMPAIGNS | SLACTIVIST NEWS | TOOLS & RESOURCES | United States Student Association |
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NATIONAL STUDENT LABOR WEEK OF ACTION REPORT BACK The Sixth Annual National Student Labor Week of Action was a huge success! In the tradition of Cesar Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King, students and workers stood as one in the fight for economic justice and workers’ rights on campuses and in communities nationwide. This year thousands of students participated in over 250 actions and events during the week of action. Students demanded that their universities pay its workers fair and livable wages provide adequate medical benefits, respect workers rights to organize and bargain and more. Their voices were heard. The National Student Labor Week of Action received significant media coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, NPR, and Pacifica Radio amongst others. HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE NATIONAL STUDENT LABOR WEEK OF ACTION ‘05 Actions and events during the 2005 National Student Labor Week of Action demonstrated the wide range of campaigns that students are running on their campuses to address workers’ rights and economic justice issues. SLACtivists at Washington University Sit-In for Fair Wages
The struggle for a Living Wage at Washington University began quite uniquely in the fall of 2003, when a group of three dozen Nicaraguan lawn care workers on seasonal H2B visas were asked to sign away their contractual rights and leave the country in two days. A group of five students who maintained close friendships with these workers committed to investigating this situation, working to bring their friends back from Nicaragua if possible, and find out if mistreatment by subcontractors and the administration was characteristic of employer-employee relationships on campus. In this way the Student Worker Alliance (SWA) was formed in November of 2003. The decision to launch a Living Wage campaign followed shortly thereafter when students discovered the working conditions for most campus workers, which included, unbearable poverty wages, with few benefits if any, feeling threatened and pressured by upper management. On April 22, 2005 a groundbreaking agreement was finalized ending the 18 day sit-in at Wash. U. The agreement includes:
"I'm so thrilled with what these students have won!" said janitor Crystal Wells, employed by Aramark. "I've never worked at a place where the people I perform services for take up for you like this." The agreement also includes amnesty for those students and faculty that participated in the sit-in. Several student leaders were threatened with judicial sanction in the course of the campaign, and nearly 200 faculty members signed an ad supporting Living Wage and the freedom to form unions, which was published in the campus newspaper. According to St. Louis Worker’s Right Board co-chair Joan Suarez, "This agreement makes important changes in the lives of workers at Washington University. The new committee also provides a very strong springboard for future progress in protecting campus workers' rights." Students and campus workers were buoyed by growing community support throughout the hunger strike and sit in. SWA at Washington University is a member of St. Louis Jobs with Justice a coalition of labor unions, community groups, religious leaders, and students which fight for workers’ rights, access to healthcare, immigrants’ rights, and global justice who played a strategic role in building community support for SWA and the campus workers. Several national figures also weighed in supporting the campaign, including Actor Danny Glover, Vice-Presidential Candidate John Edwards, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. US Congressmen Lacy Clay and Russ Carnahan delivered refreshments to students during the hunger strike. Congregations throughout St. Louis were keeping a 24-hour vigil outside Brookings Hall, the building where the admissions office is located, in the final days of the sit-in. For the students at Washington University this is only the beginning. Along with St. Louis Jobs with Justice, students plan to continue to support worker’s rights and stand in solidarity with unions and community groups in the fight for economic justice at Washington University. Students at UNC-Chapel Hill are Fighting Aramark's Union-Busting Efforts
Workers at UNC-Chapel Hill are attempting to form a union as part of the Service Worker Solidarity Campaign which involves a coalition of labor unions and student groups, including Service Workers United, SEIU, UNITE-HERE, the Student Labor Action Project and United Students Against Sweatshops. The campaign seeks to engage students in the fight for the rights of cafeteria workers to organize unions. According to the university Dowdy, a long-time employee of Lenoir Dining Hall and vocal supporter of labor union rights for Aramark employees, was suspended for "felony embezzlement of food.” Students from UNC Student Action with Workers/ Students against Sweatshops saw the suspension and arrest of Ms. Dowdy as being closely related to her involvement with the union organizing drive of Aramark-employed campus workers at UNC-Chapel Hill. Students plan to continue working with local unions and community groups to support Dowdy. During the summer they will also be working with Service Workers United (SWU), the union attempting to organize Aramark workers at UNC-Chapel-Hill, in their efforts to sign workers up for the union. Grad Student Employees Fight for Their Rights at U Mass
SLAP's "Social Security Guards" Fight Plans to Privatize
President Bush and others have developed a proposal to privatize Social Security. The affects that this proposal will have on students and youth are immense. Threats that students and youth face under the new plan include cuts to disability and life insurance; inheriting a new, larger national debt; and increased stock market risks, amongst others. SLAP, USSA and other youth groups have formed a coalition that will mobilize youth to fight plans to privatize to Social Security. For more information on the plan to privatize social security, download SLAP’s fact sheet, “What You Need to Know About Social Security Privatization and Youth”. You can also visit: http://www.americansforsocialsecurity.com/ Want to get involved? Contact us at slap@jwj.org. UPCOMING STUDENT CONFERENCES National Student Labor Pre-Conference & Jobs With Justice Annual Meeting Are you still pumped from the recent victories at Georgetown and Washington Universities (amongst others)? Is the adrenaline built up during the National Student Labor Week of Action still rushing through your body? Are you ready to ignite the movement for economic justice and worker's rights of your campus? Join us for the National Student Labor Pre-Conference at the Jobs with Justice Annual Meeting! When: September 22, 2005 (Jobs with Justice Annual Meeting - Sept.23-25) -Learn skills that will help build the student movement of your campus. RESERVE YOUR SEAT NOW AT: http://www.unionvoice.org/jobswithjustice/events/studentannualmeeting05/details.tcl Limited scholarships are available. For more information contact Carl Lipscombe at slap@jwj.org or call (202) 393-1044 ext. 221. USSA 58th Annual National Student Congress USAS Summer Retreat Student & Youth Encuentro GRADUATE STUDENT SOLIDARITY An article posted on April 25, 2005 on TheNation.com exposed an internal memo authored by Columbia University Provost Alan Brinkley, outlining fear inducing tactics that university administrators and professors could use to discourage graduate teaching assistants from fighting for their rights to organize. Several of the tactics highlighted in the February 16 memo, would be deemed illegal if graduate teaching assistants were covered by the National Labor Relations Act. The memo was uncovered by TheNation.com following a week long strike in beginning April 18, in which graduate students at Columbia and Yale universities took a stand for their rights as workers for fair wages, adequate medical benefits, the right to organize and more. The strike reached its climax on April 20 when AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn, UNITE HERE’s President/Hospitality Industry John Wilhelm, several New York City Council members and hundreds of community and university supporters rallied to demand recognition of the union for graduate student teaching assistants at Columbia University. The Columbia assistants are members of Graduate Student Employees United, an affiliate of UAW Local 2110, and the Yale students belong to Graduate Student Employees Association, affiliated with UNITE HERE Local 35 in New Haven, Conn. To read more about the Columbia University union-busting memo visit: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050509&s=washburn To take action against Columbia University’s treatment of its graduate employees visit American Rights at Work’s advocacy campaign at: http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/unionbust_columbia/ For more information on the right to organize click below for SLAP’s fact sheets on Graduate Student Organizing in the U.S. and Labor and Education. ACCESS TO EDUCATION Proposed Cuts To Higher Education Threaten Future of Educational Access for Thousands of Students (Why You Should Care…..) The House and Senate Budget Committees passed budget resolutions in March. The House budget resolution instructs the authorizing committees to cut $69 billion, while the Senate budget resolution instructs the authorizing committees to cut $17 billion. Authorizing committees have jurisdiction over mandatory programs, which are funded separately from discretionary programs and require additional measures to change funding structures. Mandatory programs include Medicare, the school lunch program, and most student loans. Discretionary programs include Federal Work-Study, the Pell Grant, and GEAR UP. These budget instructions, also known as reconciliation instructions, would require the authorizing committees to cut from the mandatory programs. Reconciliation instructions for the education committees would greatly impact the student loan programs and more than likely eliminate borrower benefits that are crucial to students when repaying loans. The Senate version also includes the Kennedy amendment, which restores funding for programs eliminated in the President’s proposed budget and an increase to the Pell Grant maximum award from $4,050 to $4,500. The next stage of the budget process, the Conference Committee, will convene shortly after the House conferees are chosen in order to reconcile the differences in the House and Senate budget bills. The House Budget Committee Chairman, Representative Nussle (R-1st-IA) will serve as Chairman of the Conference Committee. The Senate conferees are Senator Gregg (R-NH), Senator Domenici (R-NM), Senator Allard (R-CO), Senator Grassley (RIA), Senator Conrad (D-ND), Senator Sarbanes (D-MD), and Senator Murray (D-WA). The Conference Committee must complete a joint budget in order to enforce reconciliation instructions on the authorizing committees. If the joint budget is rejected by either chamber once it reaches the floor for a vote, authorizing committees will not need to follow any reconciliation instructions. The Conference Committee is aiming to complete a conference joint budget by April 29th. The Appropriations Committees may begin marking up appropriations bills on May 15th, regardless of whether the Conference Committee produces a joint budget resolution. Many students are exercising their voices to make sure our demands are included in the budget resolution. Contact your elected official and ask them to support a final budget that includes the Kennedy student aid amendment. For more information on how you can take action now contact Jasmine Harris, USSA’s Legislative Director at (202)347-USSA or via e-mail at leg@usstudents.org. Visit www.usstudents.org for more legislative updates. GLOBAL JUSTICE Coca-Cola Continues to Deny Human Rights Violations On May 6, students from universities around the country presented to University administrators and coca-cola executives about the human rights abuses taking place in both Colombia and India. SINALTRAINAL, the food and bottling plant worker’s union in Colombia called for a boycott of the soft-drink giant in July 2003 after the murders of eight union leaders. Other abuses committed by supervisors and administrators of Coca-Cola bottling plants include the torture, kidnapping, threatening, and firing of pro-union workers. Thirteen universities, including some of the biggest state schools in the country (University of Texas, Ohio State University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of California, University of Michigan, University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign, Duke University, Georgetown University, New York University, American University, Indiana University, Oberlin College, and DePaul University) came together to question coca-cola's practices, including Coca-Cola's bogus investigation and PR donations in response to student protest around the country. Coke continues to deny responsibility for its bottling plants. Students will continue to push for universities to cut Coca- Cola contracts immediately until coca-cola negotiates a fair settlement with communities in both Colombia and India. For more information visit on Coke’s human rights abuses visit: To learn how you can get involved visit United Students Against Sweatshops at www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org Universities Affiliate with the Worker’s Rights Consortium The Student Labor Action Project would like to congratulate students at Washington University, Michigan State, the University of Colorado- Boulder, the University at Buffalo (SUNY), the University of Chicago, and Pomona College on their victorious Worker’s Rights Consortium campaigns. During the National Student Labor Week of Action students organized direct actions, rallies, and educational events, urging their universities to affiliate with the WRC. The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is a non-profit organization created by college and university administrations, students and labor rights experts. The WRC's purpose is to assist in the enforcement of manufacturing Codes of Conduct adopted by colleges and universities. These Codes are designed to ensure that factories producing clothing and other goods bearing college and university names respect the basic rights of workers. There are more than 100 colleges and universities affiliated with the WRC. FARM WORKER SOLIDARITY Take Action Now! Demand that McDonald’s Meet with Immokalee Workers and End Human Rights Abuses! May 1 (May Day) - The recent conclusion of the Taco Bell Boycott was a tremendous and unprecedented victory. But Taco Bell is only one major buyer among many in the fast-food industry, and the impact of its commitment will fall only on those workers who pick tomatoes for Taco Bell. On March 8th, at the press conference that ended the Taco Bell Boycott, CIW member and 2003 RFK Human Rights Award Laureate Lucas Benitez addressed the vast network of boycott allies directly, saying, “Our work together is not done. Now we must convince other companies that they have the power to change the way they do business and the way workers are treated.” You can help hasten the day when all Florida farm workers enjoy the same fundamental rights to a decent wage and fair working conditions. Write to McDonald’s and urge them to commit their brand and market power to making real the principles established in the Taco Bell agreement! Watch out Ronald... we know how to win! Visit www.sfalliance.org for information on how you can take action against McDonalds!
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Inspired by the victory at Georgetown University, on April 4, 2005 students at Washington University began the second longest sit-in, in the recent history of the student movement in support of a living wage for workers on their campus. 
On April 4, 2005 students at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill held a rally to condemn anti-union tactics and the firing of a worker for union organizing perpetrated by Aramark dining services, the company which provides the university’s cafeteria services. On March 31 Vel Dowdy, a long time employee of UNC-Chapel Hill Dining Hall was suspended. This suspension took place in the midst of an organizing drive of Aramark workers at UNC-Chapel Hill. 
For over a year graduate teaching assistants, members of the Graduate Employee Organization, UAW 2322 had been attempting to negotiate a fair contract at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst. According to students the university proposed cuts in health care, substandard wage increases, and the elimination of same-sex domestic partner benefits. On April 1, 600 graduate teaching assistants and supporters, blocked traffic and stormed the university chancellor’s office as part of a mass rally and demonstration. Stay tuned for updates as bargaining continues. 
On March 31, as part of the AFL-CIO’s National Day of Action against social security privatization targeted at Charles Schwab and Wachovia, two financial institutions which are major supporters of social security privatization, SLActvists in Philadelphia, Chicago, DC, and Long Island spoke out against social security privatization. In DC, United States Student Association (USSA) President, Ajita Talwalker, spoke about the implications of privatization on youth. In Philadelphia, National SLAP Coordinator, Carl Lipscombe, spoke about his own personal experience with social security, and the importance of survivor’s benefits. And in Long Island, high school student, Kevin Halcot, spoke about the need for youth to fight against the corporatization of social benefits. 