Over 50 students, administrators and workers gathered in Red Square yesterday afternoon to rally for higher pay and expanded union rights for Georgetown’s subcontracted employees.
The rally, sponsored by the Living Wage Coalition, was part of an effort by coalition members to raise the visibility of the living wage issue almost a year after students staged an eight-day hunger strike to convince the university to raise its workers’ wages.
The rally featured addresses by a Georgetown Facilities Department worker, Pedro Vasquez, who praised the students’ efforts and emphasized the importance of increased worker benefits, as well as Khalil Hibri (SFS ’07), a candidate in the upcoming GUSA presidential campaign. Hibri criticized the student association’s lack of past involvement in the living wage debate and said the university must act to prevent a recurrence of last year’s protests, which included a high-profile hunger strike last March.
“We want the university to deliver before you guys have to go on hunger strike again,” Hibri said.
Coalition members said they have stepped up their efforts in recent weeks, organizing meetings between students and workers and distributing flyers across campus in an effort to challenge the university to prove that it has lived up to the promises it made after the hunger strike.
Last Wednesday, students who said they were frustrated with the secrecy of university wage procedures scuffled with Department of Public Safety officers as they tried to gain access to a closed meeting of the Advisory Committee on Business Practices, which oversees the implementation of university payment procedures.
“We had tried to go through the proper channels, we had tried to go through the process,” said coalition member Zach Pesavento (SFS ’08), one of the students who rushed the cordon of DPS officers last Wednesday. “That closed door is a symbol of what’s going on in this campus right now. . We’re going to make sure there are no more closed doors for our workers.”
Five DPS officers were stationed in Red Square to observe the rally from a distance. DPS Director Darryl Harrison said that, while it was standard procedure to monitor “events of this type,” events over the past several days had played a role in the department’s decision to observe the rally and possibly other upcoming coalition events.
Coalition members have said administrators must meet their demands by releasing detailed wage data and allowing workers to more easily unionize by March 14, the one-year anniversary of the beginning of last year’s hunger strike. Twenty-six students participated in that strike, which garnered national attention and pressured the university to make wage concessions by releasing its new Just Employment Policy.
The policy, which went into effect last March, promised that all subcontracted workers would receive at least $13 an hour by last July, and $14 an hour by July 2007. Administrators say all workers are now receiving at least $13 an hour in wages and benefits, but some student groups have questioned the university’s figures and asked for a comprehensive breakdown of the new benefits and wage levels.
Sara Wallace-Keeshen (COL ’08), who directed much of yesterday’s rally, said that the living wage campaign was “stepping up” in the face of administrative stonewalling.
“It’s time to hold the administration accountable,” Wallace-Keeshen said. “A year later, to know that everything you fought for with the living wage hasn’t happened, the symbolism of that is very important. . We’re ready to walk the walk we’ve been talking.”
University spokesman Erik Smulson defended the university’s current unionization policies as “consistent with applicable law,” and said that administrators were legally required to keep certain details of the payroll process private.
“There are contractual commitments and legal constraints that limit what Georgetown is able to disclose about individual contractor benefits. However, we continue to work with our contractors to increase disclosure wherever possible and appropriate,” Smulson said.
Smulson also said that Georgetown is committed to the ACBP deliberative process and its ability to supervise the implementation of the Just Employment Policy.
Administrators have released data about the hourly wages each of the university’s contractors pays its employees, but have not disclosed a specific breakdown of the benefits involved in the calculation.
Although coalition members said they have no specific plans ready to implement if the university declines to meet their demands by the March deadline, some suggested their reaction could be similar in scope to last spring’s hunger strike.
“Everybody in the community knows what happened last year on that date,” coalition member Sarah Heydemann (COL ’09) said. “Escalation is always a possibility. . We hope it doesn’t get that far and would hope to have a resolution before that date.”
Despite their increasingly forceful stance toward the university’s wage policies, coalition members also emphasized their willingness to continue working with the ACBP and university administrators to reach an agreement before their deadline.
“As of now, we’re committed to continue working with the committee,” Wallace-Keeshen said.