ON APRIL 8, the University's Human Resources Department circulated a "free speech" memo to all staff and faculty. The memo eloquently reaffirmed employees' First Amendment rights and restated the University's commitment to protect all members of our community from discrimination and harassment.
But the memo did not mention that it was sent out in response to a proposal made by the Living Wage Campaign. Given the University's present budget crisis, the Campaign has elected to put off substantive demands about wages until after the wage freeze ends. Instead, we have focused on other, non-monetary issues that are crucial to employees' well-being in the workplace.
One of those issues has to do with employees' rights to speak out about poor working conditions and wages; to align themselves with organizations that advocate for labor; and to do so without fear of retaliation. Sadly, too many of the University's employees - particularly people of color and women - do not feel that they can exercise safely these basic human rights.
As a small step toward redressing this problem, the Campaign asked the administration to circulate a memo assuring all employees that the University is committed to protecting their rights in the workplace. But, despite our repeated requests, the University explicitly refused to include any language related to labor issues and wages when it issued the memo. If the University's labor practices were truly fair, this request would not have been threatening.
After the memo was circulated, I spoke to a number of janitorial staff to ask them what they thought of it. They all replied that they were not convinced - that they still felt afraid to speak up about poor wages and working conditions for fear of losing their jobs. Indeed, some had stories to tell of colleagues who suffered exactly this fate, simply for questioning why so many full-time workers earn so little that they have to work second jobs or rely on public housing just to make ends meet.
Labor sociologists refer to this as "structural violence": workers at the bottom of the pay scale are forced to accept substandard conditions because they face the perpetual threat of unemployment. In other words, management uses workers' vulnerability and fear to keep them docile and exploitable.
This dehumanizing process prevents workers at the bottom of the pay scale from ever working their way up. Indeed, many University employees have served this institution for over twenty years and still make an entry-level wage. This is a far cry from what work in the United States is supposed to be like; this is the dark underside of the American Dream.
The situation is even worse for the hundreds of contracted workers working on Grounds who did not receive even the generic "free speech" memo and whose workplace rights are significantly more precarious. Many of them work for as little as $7.25 per hour with no benefits, forced to accept standards far below what the University sets for its own direct employees.
For more than three years, the Campaign has been asking the University to exercise its legal right to require contracted vendors to provide information about how they compensate their employees. But the administration repeatedly has refused to take this very simple step. This flagrant resistance to transparency leaves us wondering: What does the University have to hide about its outsourcing practices?
That this kind of systemic exploitation has taken root in our community should be deeply outrageous to all of us. University President Teresa A. Sullivan has claimed that she wants to foster a "caring community" here. But who does this include? Do the University's lowest-paid employees and contracted workers not count? By refusing to ensure their dignity and well-being, does the administration think of them as somehow less human?
These are the questions that have inspired the Campaign to declare a Day of Action on Wednesday, April 20. We will be gathering at Madison Hall at 4 p.m. to ask President Sullivan to take leadership on this urgent issue, and to assert that the University no longer will tolerate exploitation in our community. The Campaign's goal - as always - is to help make our University the best that it can be. That means having the courage to challenge insidious exclusions based on race, gender and class, for we cannot afford to be neutral in the face of injustice.
Jason Hickel is a graduate Arts & Sciences student. He is affiliated with the Living Wage Campaign.
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