“Community” was the buzzword of the Northwestern Living Wage Campaign “teach-in” Thursday evening in the Louis Room at Norris University Center.
Students, campus workers and an organizer of the student support group that participated in Yale University’s 1985 clerical worker strike led a series of presentations to educate attendees on the importance and practicality of the living wage. Speakers emphasized the importance of the living wage in bringing about a more unified NU.
Members of NU’s Living Wage Campaign discussed how other schools have financed wage increases for workers and the inadequacy of using the Consumer Price Index to calculate the federal poverty line. The Living Wage Campaign said food spending is significantly overweighted in the CPI.
“In the 1960s, people used a third of their money on food,” Weinberg sophomore Hayley Altabef said. “So the government calculated the price of food, multiplied it by three, and that’s how much money people need for subsistence. The problem today is that the government still uses that number.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, the CPI is recalibrated regularly and the most recent CPI data gives a weight of 14.8 percent toward food. The Living Wage Campaign cited 12 percent as the actual proportion of spending the average Illinois family puts toward food.
“What you’re doing in this campaign is bringing these people into the community,” said Toni Gilpin, referring to the subcontracted workers. Gilpin, the Yale strike support group organizer and current director of the Democratic Party of Evanston started the evening’s presentations with hers on the 1985 Yale strike. She spoke about parallels and differences between the Yale campaign and the movement currently underway at NU.
“She enumerated a lot of strategies that could be effective for us,” said Jordan Fein, a Weinberg junior on the Living Wage Campaign executive board and former Daily columnist.
Organizers also sought to correct misperceptions about their campaign, such as the idea student costs must increase to fund a living wage.
“From the research we’ve done so far, none of the universities (we’ve studied) have put the sole revenue stream on increasing tuition on students,” said Matthew Fischler, a Weinberg senior and coordinator of the NU Living Wage Campaign. Fischler said several universities such as Stanford and Duke have managed to keep student costs constant through a combination of methods, including tougher conditions on subcontractors like Sodexo.
Fischler recognized some of the challenges facing the Living Wage Campaign, including criticism from University President Morton O. Schapiro.
“A lot of the concerns are legitimate,” Fischler said. “The economics argument resonates with a lot of people.”
Supporters noted that despite adverse economic conditions, the living wage is about more than just money.
“We talk a lot about community,” Weinberg sophomore Eric Felland said. “The people who do the most basic work are not acknowledged as part of the community. There’s no reason (NU) can’t do better for its workers.”
Fischler added that events like the teach-in that promote awareness about the arguments behind the campaign could help it be more successful.
“I don’t think people really know the facts, and I don’t think people really know the stories,” he said. “Once people are able to put faces to these statistics, to put stories to these statistics … that’s going to resonate a lot more.”
Longtime campaign supporters such as Felland and Fischler said they were happy about the event’s turnout, and Fischler added he was also glad to see plenty of new faces at the teach-in as well as the “30 to 40 usual people.”
The evening’s presentation concluded with speeches by two Sodexo union stewards, who called on students to remember the importance of what they are supporting.
“The living wage would help workers get out of the poverty cycle,” said Rafael Marquez, the union steward of the 1835 Hinman dining hall. “A living wage is not a luxury. It’s a human right.”[email protected]
