Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Hunger Strikers Enter Day Eight

Twenty-six members of the Living Wage Coalition continued their hunger strike even as a striker was hospitalized over the weekend, reaching their seventh day without food yesterday.

Student protesters said yesterday that they would continue the protest indefinitely until the university raises total compensation for contracted workers to $14.93 per hour or students reach a compromise with administrators.

According to witnesses, GERMS rushed Mike Wilson (COL ’05) to Georgetown University Hospital Saturday morning after he reported vision problems.

Wilson was released Saturday afternoon after receiving emergency intravenous fluids from emergency room physicians. He later said that he was no longer on a hunger strike.

Responding to concerns that the students were receiving inadequate nourishment, university administrators met with the strikers before mailing letters to their parents Friday urging them to ask their students to eat immediately.

James Welsh, assistant vice president for student health, also e-mailed all of the hunger strikers Monday morning asking the students to meet with him. He wrote that he would “make recommendations to the Vice President of Student Affairs to address my concerns about your dangerous activities” if the students did not discontinue the hunger strike.

Welsh said later that the students are putting their health in danger by not eating.

“In people with pre-existing medical and psychiatric conditions, whether known or unknown, these risks are greatly increased,” he said. “In particular, certain medications can be particularly problematic.”

Maya Zwerdling (SFS ’08), a member of the Living Wage Coalition, said that university administrators had previously threatened to place the students on involuntary medical leave if they did not begin eating immediately.

But Zwerdling said that most of the strikers were drinking fruit and vegetable juices and called Welsh’s concerns “unfounded.”

She added that many strikers had responded to Welsh via e-mail and said that GERMS has been monitoring the protestors’ blood pressure every morning.

“For the most part everyone is healthy and we all feel committed to the hunger strike and need to have a long term commitment,” she said. “This hunger strike will not end until we receive a commitment from administrators to pay workers the wages they deserve.”

Liam Stack (COL ’05) said while some strikers will go home over the Easter break, if the strike does not come to an end many will remain on campus and will continue their protest.

Yet as some strikers strengthened their resolve, new opposition to the Living Wage Coalition materialized in the student body.

According to Joe McReynolds (SFS ’08), his new Web site to oppose the campaign “is providing a voice for the silent majority of Georgetown students who oppose a living wage.”

McReynolds said he was challenging hunger strikers to debate him and had bought advertisements on thefacebook.com to promote his site, https://www.livingwagetruth.com.

“The Living Wage Coalition hasn’t done much to provide a convincing argument for their living wage,” he said. “I’ve been struck by how little of a two-sided debate there has been on campus.”

For her part, Zwerdling said that the Living Wage Coalition was willing to engage in dialogue with people like McReynolds but that arguments against a living wage “are not strong ones.”

Julie Green Bataille, assistant vice president of communications, said that the university would be holding a special meeting of the Advisory Committee of Business Practices Tuesday “to discuss the substantive issues of wage compensation policy with that group.”

The group would try to develop a recommendation for Senior Vice President Spiros Dimolitsas to present to university leaders, Bataille said.

In a March 14 e-mail to the university community, Dimolitsas said that the university’s minimum total compensation packages range from $11.33 to $13.42 per hour. In the e-mail he also said that he had submitted a proposal to the ACBP to raise Georgetown’s employee compensation levels to a minimum of $14.00 over the next three years. The Living Wage Coalition rejected that proposal.

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