The Labor Action Group sent letters to two top administrators yesterday to request support for a University Hospital cafeteria employee's right to wear an $8 living wage campaign pin under freedom of speech laws.
Richelle Burress, a Hospital cafeteria cashier, was sent home Wednesday after refusing to remove her $8 pin. Burress is employed by Morrison Management Specialists -- a private company which services all food and nutrition services at the Hospital.
The campaign to raise the minimum wage for University employees to $8 an hour is endorsed by the Labor Action Group, an organization of students, faculty and staff members and members of the Charlottesville community.
The letters were sent to Leonard W. Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Robert W. Cantrell, vice president and provost for health sciences.
Burress, who now makes $6.24 an hour, said she will not return to work unless her employers allow her to wear the pin.
She said she had been wearing the pin for an entire day before her supervisors asked her to remove it. When she declined to do so, citing her freedom of speech rights, she was asked to leave.
"They need to realize they were wrong by sending me home and accept me back with the pin," she added.
But James English, senior director of nutrition services, said he has no intention of allowing Burress to wear the pin while she works.
Morrison Management requires all its hourly personnel to wear a uniform -- wearing any type of pin violates the policy, English said.
"We don't allow anything that could cause a distraction and could interfere with the productivity of [an employee's] job," he said.
Burress has a right to display her pin outside of her job, he added.
Burress said she might press charges against the company if Morrison Management does not permit her to wear the pin.
Law Prof. George Rutherglen -- who previously has spoken at LAG events -- said Burress has two main options in terms of civil litigation. She can either claim that her First Amendment rights were violated or can claim her rights under the National Labor Relations Act were violated.
"It's very clear that she has a free speech right to wear a button in a non-obstructive and non-disruptive" manner, Rutherglen said. "She has a very substantial claim under the National Labor Relations Act."
Burress could file a lawsuit either in a federal or state court, or can take her claim to the National Labor Relations Board, depending on the accusation, he said.
Nelson Lichtenstein, history professor and LAG member, said Morrison Management's argument that Burress was out of uniform does not hold up.
Burress "showed the same kind of heroism as Rosa Parks -- she stood up for her rights," Lichtenstein said. "She is the living embodiment of the Jeffersonian tradition."
LAG has been trying to persuade the University to lobby the state to increase the minimum wage of University employees, he said.
The University should require an $8 minimum wage in its private contracts with companies, he added.
University spokeswoman Louise Dudley said the administration will ask Morrison Management to review how their dress code was applied in this situation.
"The University is committed to the rights of employees to express their views," Dudley said.
Meanwhile, LAG is subsidizing Burress' wage at the rate of $8 an hour while she is temporarily out of work, Lichtenstein said.
LAG is planning a rally tomorrow -- starting at the Lawn and moving to the Health Sciences Library -- to support Burress and show the community that she is not alone, he said.
"This is a fight," he added. "It's the civil rights movement of our time. If we win, it will have a wonderful impact. If we lose, we should put a sheet over Thomas Jefferson's statue"
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