On and off campus, we face the challenges of being overworked, underpaid, and undervalued, never mind our exhausting responsibilities as university students on top of them. If we want to see our conditions improve and create a future we can look forward to, students need to get serious about the fight for labor rights.

WashU, like most other majority-liberal universities, is a bubble; however, Missouri is not. Some of the communities most impacted by this year’s election results are just outside the gates of WashU, and stepping out of the campus ecosystem is a crucial step in enacting real change.

This election day, Missouri voters will be deciding on a number of issues more than just who will be the next president or governor.

The 2009-2010 school year was filled with new campus developments, student activism and controversy, allowing Wash. U. students to make their mark on the events of the year.

As French strikers try to paralyze their country in their efforts to save the welfare state, the parallel with the U.S. could not be starker. In one country the popular, grass-roots movement is trying to save and increase government expenditure. On this side of the Atlantic however, the Tea Partiers have usurped and misunderstood the traditional revolutionary slogan “No taxation without representation”.

Taxes and puppies may not bring the same expression to most faces. But on Tuesday, citizens of St. Louis County—including Washington University students who are registered to vote in Missouri—will cast their ballots on both.

On the ballot this November is the Missouri Earnings Tax Initiative, also known as Proposition A. You may have seen some of their advertisements on Hulu. This referendum would require a vote on the one percent earnings tax in the two major cities in Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City, in 2011.

The tiara-wearing Miz MetroLink became a familiar face on Washington University’s campus last year. Urging people to support the sales tax measure Proposition A to fund more transit service, the crowned figure was actually Liz Kramer, a University administrator.

In Washington University’s Danforth University Center, Chancellor Mark Wrighton, Chesterfield Mayor John Nations, executive director of Citizens for Modern Transit Tom Shrout, and CEO of St. Louis Metro Bob Baer […]

Proposition A has received enough votes to pass even with the 16 percent of uncounted ballots. With 84 percent of the ballots in, 62.2 percent of voters supported the proposition […]