A college degree can help graduates earn big salaries, yet the people who make the school run every day are taking home pennies. This week, students at Stanford University are in the midst of a hunger strike to urge the university pay living wages to cafeteria and other contract workers on campus. And after 14 weeks of fruitless bargaining, University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate employees, members of Graduate Employee Organization/UAW (GEO/UAW) Local 2322, are taking their concerns over wages directly to the chancellor.
At Stanford, 12 people, including members of the Stanford Labor Action Coalition (SLAC), alumni and workers, have been on a hunger strike since April 12. Even though the university has a living wage policy, school officials have used loopholes to pay less to hundreds of workers. SLAC is demanding that the university pay all workers—contract workers and those who work directly for the school—a living wage. Currently, students on about 15 campuses are engaged in living wage campaigns, according to ACORN’s Living Wage Resource Center.
According to the California Budget Project, a worker needs to make at least $13.41 an hour to afford the bare minimums in the Bay Area. Many of the Stanford workers make as little as $9 an hour. The mostly immigrant workers are hired by temp agencies or contractors to clean, prepare food and perform other services on the Stanford campus.
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