SARAH KLIFFThis week, Washington University’s Student Worker Alliance (SWA) is sponsoring events to promote awareness of working conditions both on campus and abroad.
The planned programs include forums on Monday and Wednesday, a “Boot the Bell” boycott of Taco Bell Tuesday, and a silent march on Thursday to demand the return of 36 Nicaraguan workers who recently lost their jobs at the University. The week will culminate in Friday’s Living Wage Rally at noon in Brookings Quad.
One of the group’s main goals is to promote awareness about living costs in St. Louis.
“We need students to realize that workers are not making enough money to live on,” said junior Ojiugo Uzoma, a member of the SWA. “They can’t put money in a savings account, save for their children’s college education, or afford health insurance. Many are living in poverty. They are working two or three jobs and don’t have time to spend with their families.”
According to Uzoma and fellow SWA member senior Katie Castellano, Bon App‚tit, the University’s food services employer, and Top Care, which employs grounds workers, do not pay their workers living wages. Quadrangle, the company that employs the custodians on the South 40, pays near-living wages. Aramark, which hires all main campus custodial staff, recently raised wages by a dollar per hour with the help of the Washington University administration.
Castellano believes that although the University has responded to the group’s actions, there is still much that has to be done
“The University is responding and has set up a task force on campus,” she said. “But we’re still running into problems such as the high turnover rates in many of our campus’s employers.”
Senior Sergio Salmeron, an active member of the SWA, is also one of two University students with seats on the task force.
“At the last meeting, the SWA made a presentation to the task force about the living wage and why we should respond to it,” said Salmeron. “Basically, we advocated that there are advantages [to increasing worker pay]-it would decrease absenteeism and turnover rate, boost low moral, and create a sense of community.”
Salmeron added that other local universities are paying higher hourly wages to outsourced employees.
“St. Louis University is paying janitors a minimum of $11.77 an hour,” he said. “[Our university] has a long way to go. [We] excel in academics and research but we need to show that we care about the community. These people are living below the poverty line…working for a prestigious university that can afford to pay them more.”
Katie Castellano believes that while living wages are the main goal, there are other issues to be dealt with.
“We want to make students more aware of how lucky they are,” she said. “We’re so privileged to have these people working for us and serving us and we really need to realize that.”
SWA, along with Amnesty International and Student Union, is participating in the campaign as part of the Week of Action sponsored by the Student Labor Action Project, a national worker’s right’s movement.
The SWA, founded in November 2003, aims to “protect workers and empower students, workers, faculty, and the community to fight for workers’ rights.”
Additional reporting by Kelly Donahue.