More than 320 students participated in Wednesday afternoon’s Living Wage Rally, which began at the Arch and finished at the Rebecca Crown Center where President Schapiro’s office is located. Armed with posters, megaphones and chant sheets, students voiced their opinion about raising wages for university service employees.
“We want to build a truly inclusive community where workers have the ability and the dignity to feel like they can fully participate in our community,” said Matt Fischler, a campaign coordinator of the Northwestern Living Wage Campaign.
The Living Wage Campaign organized Wednesday’s rally to garner support for an increase in benefits for service employees. These benefits include providing employees access to the library, discounts to cultural and sporting events and a raise in hourly wages to $13.23, the “Living Wage” according to the Illinois Self-Sufficiency Standard.
“This is not a wage people get rich off of,” said Fischler. “Literally it’s defined to be sufficient to meet basic needs so no individual has to sacrifice any life necessity.”
The Northwestern Living Wage Campaign began organizing during Fall quarter. Although the campaign has met with President Schapiro and other administrators, no progress has been made yet to make any permanent changes in the hourly wage.
“We’ll continue to consider it carefully,” said Al Cubbage, Vice President for University Relations. “It’s an issue that obviously has an impact on the university budget and that’s something we think about very carefully, particularly when tuition increases and room and board increases are part of it.”
Professor Nancy MacLean, a history professor in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and former administrator, believes that with an endowment of $6 billion, Northwestern can afford to pay their employees the living wage.
“It’s going to let us be a leader on creating a socially sustainable system in which every member of our community and our society and our workplace is valued,” said MacLean, a 20-year Northwestern professor.
The Living Wage Campaign began advertising for the event last week via traditional methods, like going door-to-door and flyering, as well as social media, like YouTube and Facebook. The Campaign launched a new website to support their marketing blitz and help students learn more about the cause.
“We want to make it easy for students to learn about it,” Fischler said. “We’ve been doing all this internet pushing so we can put all the info out there.”
Students that attended the rally, while new to the campaign, could feel the impact it had not only on the campaign, but on the Northwestern community.
“This was the first time I’ve seen the campus come together for an issue and actually make some noise about an issue that matters to students, faculty and our community as a whole.” said Kristen Cragwall, a Communication senior and a member of the NCDC, a co-sponsor for the Northwestern Living Wage Campaign.
“Just being at the rally and seeing how many people care that Northwestern is a community [was very important],” said Leslie Clark, a Medill freshman. “That made me feel really good about being here.”
There is a reason why stanford, harvard, georgetown, emory and other places have all enacted a living wage, w/o increase in tution - because it works. Also there's a reason why a litany of cities across the nation have been doing the same over the years. Read up first.
Then YOU might "understand". but thats doubtful though...JoeReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
@yes they have: what specific "frvilous things that the University does now" would you suggest eliminating?ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
Excellent point; let's institute these proposals straight away. In other news, Northwestern's mascot has just been changed from the wildcat to the lemming.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
1) The best argument in favor of the living wage is that we pay so much money for meals anyway that it has to be going somewhere, so it may as well go there. 2) Having said that, didn't we just lock in the Sodexo contract 1-2 years ago for the next 10? Wouldn't this movement have been better served then, or was that simply an inconvenient time for liberal guilt...? 3) If we pay $13/hour, this will make Northwestern one of the highest paying unskilled-labor employers in the area. As such, I expect to get the best unskilled laborers, both for my own well-being and for social justice: the better unskilled laborers deserve our $13/hour more. Some of our current employees are very good...but the remaining 75% should be replaced in the event that this passes. There are people working at Taco Bell/BK/CVS who are simply better workers than a lot of these people, and deserve the living wage more. Oh but wait, our workers are unionized, and will probably use some form of L.I.F.O.? Well, crap. 4) Cafeteria workers get 2 free meals a day, that should at least factor into the living wage "figure," and reduce it by at least a dollar/hour.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
Empathy is important and very noble among a bunch of middle class or wealthy students. However, you can't just give people money to make yourself feel better. The jobs these people do aren't worth $13 an hour in our economy. The University would just become a welfare institution and it could negatively effect local businesses if this becomes standard. Spend your time rallying for adult education or scholarships for disadvantaged students and try to solve the cause of the problem rather than the symptomReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
In addition, you said "spend your time rallying for adult education or scholarships for disadvantaged students and try to solve the cause of the problem rather than the symptom." First off, this really shows an ignorance of the complexities of poverty. But this is not the path I want to go down. Rather, I would like to challenge your statement directly. If we get everyone an adequate education so that all citizens go to college, put in honorable effort and get good grades (this is an ideal, but economics and political philosophy work on ideals) than we have an incredibly well trained, smart public. Great! But you still need people to fill in the jobs at the lower rung. So no matter how well educated they are, their will still be a demand for food service workers. Clearly the citizens are now more morally "deserving" for a higher pay according to your perspective, but they are not more economically deserving because the nature of the labor they supply simply is not going to be worth a whole lot. That is to say, there is a gap between your notion of moral desert and economic desert. Furthermore, if all the citizens get an education then the better well-paying jobs will be filled up and we will still have a surplus of an educated citizenry that are forced into lower paying jobs even though they are more qualified (look at a lot of underdeveloped countries where people get great degrees but don't have a job in their field because there are no job opportunities).
Lastly, do you have a heart? As part of the human society we should hope to construct institutions where everyone can at least get by. Your selfishness is shameful and poisonous.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
you are making sweeping idealistic judgments without regard for the realities of the world. that's why this movement won't go anywhere... it doesn't make sense. it "feels good," and it's hard not to get someone on board with something that "feels good" and satisfies his liberal guilt, but ultimately decisions should be based on reality and not on fluffy dreams where everyone has a money tree growing in his backyard.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
i raised a philosophical problem. answer it (hint- its about desert).
as for the economic problem-1) if you want to argue that giving everyone an increase in wage doesn't work because it raises the price of goods thats a whole different argument. I wasn't arguing this. I am arguing in response to R's last sentence because it presumes that we value labor according to demand. Therefore I posed a hypothetical example. I am saying 1) education wont fix it and 2) we shouldn't structure a society where people can't survive. Now this is where you could bring in the inflating the price of goods argument but you must first address the feasibility of increasing wages for workers, which companies can surely do while maintaining competitiveness if they all simultaneously raise the lowest paid wages. Again, you could now bring in the inflation of prices, but I don't see how you could argue about feasibility of loss of competitiveness among companies if it we assume on average a profit is made and competitiveness remains.
So now I would like you to 1) respond to the philosophical question I posed 2) respond to the hypothetical experiment regarding education as a solution (in response to R's last sentence) and 3) use some economic data to dispute the feasibility of increasing wages by either (or both) showing that a) price of goods increases so standard of living remains the same and/or b) companies will still remain less competitive even if the wage is raised unanimously across the board for the lowest tiered workers.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
I do not object to your claim that we will need janitors and cooks even if everyone is adequately educated. clearly, there will always be a "lower rung". i agree that R's last statement is hardly a valid alternative.
what i object to is your characterization of someone who does not support this campaign as "heartless." i mean, "your selfishness is shameful and poisonous"? them's harsh words, bud.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No
But just for the sake of debate, I would like some answers.ReplyReport Are you sure? Yes / No