Georgetown’s trend of political activism is expanding to other universities across the country. Students are following the lead of the Georgetown Living Wage Coalition and a national union movement by taking wage issues into their own hands at several universities, including Washington University, Yale University, Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
In March, the Living Wage Coalition at Georgetown campaigned successfully for an increase in workers’ wages from $11.33 to $13 by staging an eight-day hunger strike. The movement received a large amount of national attention, including coverage in the Washington Post and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Students at several other schools who are attempting to gain higher wages for university workers and graduate employees have now followed Georgetown’s example.
The Student Worker Alliance at Washington University in St. Louis ended a 19-day sit-in on April 22 after the university agreed to spend $500,000 in the next academic year and another $1 million annually in subsequent years to increase salaries and benefits for contracted employees.
The sit-in included a six-day hunger strike between April 11 and April 17 until the SWA was granted three meetings with Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton to discuss a living wage.
SWA co-founder Danielle Christmas said that the efforts of the Georgetown Living Wage Coalition were a major inspiration to her organization.
“We decided at that point in time that we were definitely going to go forward with [the protest],” Christmas said.
When asked to give an administrator’s perspective on the issue, Washington University Vice Chancellor of Public Affairs Fred Volkmann was reluctant to provide a specific comment.
“It’s a part of the national labor movement,” he said.
Compensation for graduate student employees and unionization efforts are also the subject of discontent and protest across the country. The Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale and Graduate Students Employees United at Columbia University are petitioning for union recognition from their institutions. The two groups staged a combined, five-day strike all last week, including a march in New York with more than 1,000 people in an attempt to draw national attention to their cause.
GESO spokesperson Rachel Sulkes said that the reasons for pursuing unionization included a need for procedures for grievances, healthcare and childcare, as well as problems of overwork and wage issues. At Yale, graduate students receive a $17,000 stipend in addition to their wages until their fifth year. In their sixth year the stipend is dropped, resulting in what Sulkes termed an insecure financial situation for higher-level students.
“There are very arcane things going on in terms of our wages,” Sulkes said.
According to Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed,” graduate students currently receive only about $12,000 a year, which is below the poverty line.
“We are the next generation of scholars and we shouldn’t be treated as cheap labor at this university,” Jen Turner, President of the Graduate Employee Organization at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said to The Daily Free Press.
Despite an apparently growing movement, Christmas said that more effort is still necessary.
“Obviously, the fight’s not over,” she said. “We’re halfway there.”
