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about SLAP | STUDENT LABOR WEEK OF ACTION | CAMPAIGNS | SLACTIVIST NEWS | TOOLS & RESOURCES | United States Student Association |
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SPRING 2007 SLACTIVIST NEWS
EIGHTH ANNUAL STUDENT LABOR WEEK OF ACTION A HUGE SUCCESS! Students in over 100 cities and 200 campuses participated in the Eight Annual Student Labor Week of Action! This year's Week of Action had events and actions on issues such as worker's rights and the freedom to form unions, living wages on campuses and in our communities, demanding that McDonald's pay a penny more for pound and gain substantial victories for farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida, exposing the injustices and atrocities around Smithfield, supporting the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, taking action to ensure Coca-Cola respect the rights of workers here in the U.S. as well as across the world, and many many more local events that brought students, workers, people of faith, and community members to demand justice in their communities. The week of action was kicked off with students all over the country coming together around farmworker rights through Farmworker Awareness Week (spearheaded by Student Action with Farmworkers), and on dozens of campuses and communities, students took it to McDonald's as a precursor to a massive Mobilization that was to take place in Chicago, IL (home to McDonald's Corporate HQ). The Student Farmworker Alliance organized their internal network to take action that week, and did they take action! United Students Against Sweatshops saw several key campuses working to ensure that our universities be sweat free escalate and take action around the Designated Suppliers Program. The Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) undertook a tour to educate its members on the Employee Free Choice Act and the significance of working people having the freedom to form a union (which is a fundamental human right under the International Declaration on Human Rights). The U.S. Student Association, as part of their "100 Day Agenda for Higher Education", had an in-district lobby day to demand Congress to create real change in student's lives. Other networks that participated in this year's Week of Action are the Young Communist League who supported actions in several cities, Campus Progress, and National Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (M.E.Ch.A.) To everyone that participated and supported this year's week of action, congratulations on a very successful week of action! We're very excited to have seen people locally coming together to create change, and side by side working together to ensure our rights and dreams become a reality. Here are a few great local highlights from cities that have come together to SLAP CORPORATE GREED: Boston SLAP Forces Smithfield off the Shelves!
Students from all over the region were united during the Week of Action in support of Smithfield workers. The Emerson Anti-Authoritarians and the Wellesley Association of Labor Rights Activists distributed fliers about Smithfield workers, their struggle, and what is wrong with Smithfield meat. UFCW Justice at Smithfield organizer, Donald Minor traveled all over the city to meet with different groups—community, student, and faith-based—to help spread the Smithfield justice word. Boston Student Labor Action Project's Week of Action was a huge success and sent the message to the Smithfield workers that the students of Boston are behind them, and telling management at Tar Heel that their workers' right better be respected or there will be a grim future ahead. Philly Students Demand Justice For Security Guards
In 2006, The Philadelphia-based Allied-Barton Co. was forced to grant concessions to thousands of its employees across the country. The company promised to not interfere with efforts to unionize in Seattle, New York City and Washington DC, but the company has refused to make the same promise for the thousands of its employees in Philadelphia.
In 2005, five Allied-Barton security officers from the University of Pennsylvania presented a petition to then-President Amy Gutmann asking University support of their efforts to unionize. Shortly thereafter they were fired. After learning about the events that occurred at U-Penn, Temple University SLAP mobilized hundreds of students and community members to call, fax, and email President Gutmann. A few days later the fired Allied-Barton security guards, who became known as the Philly Five, were reinstated to their position at the University. The Jobs with Justice "Security and Justice Campaign" is led by security officers, students, people of faith, and labor activists determined to win real victories for the workers in our communities. Standing alone, we will not win. The Student Labor Action Project has a long-term goal of helping these workers win a union without suffering the usual harassment or firings that are standard when workers try to form a union. Only a union contract will insure that these workers earn family-sustaining wages, accessible, quality health care and a voice on the job for years to come. After McDonald's Victory, DC Students Set Their Sights on Burger King During the Week of Action, DC SLAP teamed up with UFCW Justice At Smithfield, DC JwJ, DC International Workers of the World, and other worker rights and community organizations on the March for Fair Food. More than 100 students, clergy, labor activists, and community activists demanded justice for workers in the stores and supply chains of Starbucks (which denies the right of their baristas to organize and violates the property rights of Ethiopian coffee farmers), Harris Teeter (which sells Smithfield products), and McDonalds. The march was the beginning of an ongoing campaign for Fair Food and Worker Rights in the DC area. DC area students from Georgetown University, American University, George Washington University, Montgomery College, and University of Maryland-College Park and community activists mobilized over sixty people to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers historic gathering in Chicago earlier this month to set their sights on the campaign's next target: Burger King. After students organized several hundred actions all over the country and in the DC area, McDonald's agreed to pay the Immokalee, FL farmworkers who pick tomatoes for much of the country a penny more per pound and establish a code of conduct respecting their rights. Burger King has so far refused to follow McDonald's lead and will face reaction from DC students and others later this week and in the coming months. Immokalee farmworkers live and work in modern-day slavery. They make 40-45 cents per 32-lb bucket of tomatoes picked. They have no health care, job security, or even respect on the job. DC students arranged a talk with Sean Sellers, organizer of the Student Farmworker Alliance, to inform the community about the struggles farmworkers face earlier this year. Since then, many DC organizations have vowed to work together in solidarity with the CIW to fight for the rights of farmworkers. For more information on the campaign for justice in the fields of Immokalee visit www.sfalliance.org Western Mass is Alive with Student-Labor Activism! Students from Smith College in Northampton, Mass. traveled down to Delaware to ask Coca-Cola Company Executives tough questions at their 2007 shareholders' meeting. Students are positive that they are entering the final stages of their campaign to Kick Coke Off Campus. The Coca-Cola Company is responsible for the murder of nine union activists in Columbia and environmental destruction in India. Students across the country have challenged their administrations' to cut contracts with the Company as a sign of worker support. More than 100 Graduate Student Employees at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst marched on Chancellor Lombardi's house on April 19 to demand the University present them an economic package as they bargain a new contract. The March also highlighted the abnormally high raises that top UMass administrators received recently, while graduate student employees - without whose labor UMass cannot function - are being forced to take an effective pay cut starting next Fall. After more than three months of bargaining, the University is still unable to come up with economic proposals on wages and fees. You can keep up to date on the bargaining sessions by checking out www.geouaw.org. Victory For Hunger Strikers At UVM
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At a rally on March 31st during the Student Labor Week of Action, students from Boston University, Wellesley College, and Tufts University came together with community leaders, clergy, and labor activists in Boston to demand justice for the workers in Tar Heel, NC. Despite the fierce cold, students proudly held up a SLAP banner emblazoned with a message encouraging management, customers, and passerbys to support Smithfield workers. During the rally outside Market Basket supermarket, where hundreds of leaflets were passed out and chants shouted, another supermarket, Farmer's Bounty, immediately agreed to pull Smithfield products from their shelves.
More than 70 students, clergy, and community members braved pouring down rain and freezing temperatures during the Student Labor Week of Action to show support for the Allied Barton security officers' ongoing struggle. The prayer vigil and rally culminated with a march to University of Pennsylvania's President's office, where local faith leaders delivered a letter demanding a meeting with the University. Days later, representatives from the Security and Justice Campaign met with Craig Carnaroli, U-Penn Executive Vice President, to discuss the Allied Barton Security insufficient sick day policy. 
Allied-Barton, despite worker and student pressure, has left more than 16,000 largely African-American work force in dire poverty, without affordable health care, pensions or paid sick days. Having demonstrated the company's readiness to crack down on union activists through suspensions, firings, cutting hours, shift and job changes and pay reductions, broad-based, community pressure is necessary to prevent company backlash against workers exercising their rights to freedom of speech, assembly and association.
After five days, the twelve hunger strikers at the University of Vermont in Burlington struck a compromise with University President Daniel Fogel over establishing a livable wage for all of UVM's employees. The students only took water or juice and lived in a tent outside the University administration building to demand a raise for UVM's lowest paid workers. Community members and other students showed their support by cheering on the strikers in classes and around campus. The students pushed President Fogel to make a commitment to ensure that workers are always compensated at a level that meets their basic needs. Sam Maron, one of the coordinators of UVM SLAP, said "We now have the ability to hold the administration accountable to their words, and now there is a significantly greater level of transparency that didn't exist before."
As part of United Students Against Sweatshops' High School conference, which brings together students to train the next generation of activists, give students an opportunity to learn from one another, and share the amazing campaigns they are running, HS Students and students from Northwestern University and University of Chicago came together with Chicago Jobs with Justice and the United Food and Commercial Workers union to SLAP corporate greed. They had 2 days of action which included a local McDonald's action and a Smithfield educational action, as well as an action against Adidas for violations of human rights. 