They’re back again. The Living Wage Coalition, a student organization focusing on the wages of university employees, is protesting to the university administration, demanding higher wages for Department of Public Safety officers. Once again, LWC and the Georgetown Solidarity Committee have imposed their own radical views on the university’s business operations, and it is students who will ultimately be stuck paying the bill.

Georgetown Solidarity Committee, the group responsible for LWC, has been working for a decade to achieve goals such as unionizing university workers and establishing increasingly higher wages for university employees. But these goals aren’t as beneficial as they seem.

Taken at face value, the coalition seems to have honorable, just and “feel-good” intentions. After all, everyone wants to see those who get paid the least get paid more.

The Solidarity Committee was founded in 1997 after another organization, one organizing cafeteria workers, failed. GSC gained popularity, involving itself with various campus and national labor organizations. By 1998, GSC was scheduling meetings with the university and began cultivating a protracted and very vocal role as the advocate of university labor interests.

The LWC seeks to increase the wages of Georgetown employees to the living wage, which Georgetown’s Just Employment Policy defines as a wage that is “designed to provide a floor for minimum total compensation appropriate for full-time Georgetown workers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.” The wage considers the costs of housing, health care, child care, transportation, taxes, food and other necessities.

LWC, and thus GSC, have moved from issue to issue, with an overarching theme of helping workers achieve more money and benefits.

But, as a private institution, Georgetown should choose to pay its employees whatever wages it desires. If the wages are unreasonable, then Georgetown will not be able to hire any employees. Requiring Georgetown to increase these wages not only undermines the premise of job competition, but also forces Georgetown to downsize its staff in order to pay the new wages.

Last night’s decision to increase pay for DPS officers was the latest example of a recurring problem: When Georgetown starts to start pay its workers higher wages, who will foot the bill?

Ultimately, the student tuition would be raised to accommodate the desires of this small group of students who are protesting.

Additionally, Georgetown offers a number of health and insurance options and other benefits to its employees. Benefits like these are much more valuable than the hourly wage increase that LWC proposes. And the job security that Georgetown provides is extremely valuable. So while LWC may propose to improve the status of individual workers who supposedly cannot afford the cost of living in Washington, D.C., the university has provided these workers with great job security and benefits. To demand higher wages only serves to promote layoffs, thereby jeopardizing employees’ job security.

Finally, a “living wage” is a flexible term. The living wages for one family are different from that of another. Also, Georgetown is not responsible for spending the time and money on researching how much money their employees need to live a comfortable life in Washington, D.C. – one of the most expensive cities in the nation.

Clearly, if these employees held the same convictions, they would join the students in protest. GSC has successfully made the living wage issue enticing to uninformed onlookers, but in principle it is not a good precedent to set.

Michael Birrer is a junior in the College and opinion editor for THE HOYA.