For the second year in a row the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) held the April 4 Student Labor Day of Action to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed on that date while organizing sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968. This year, the 33rd Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, student organizations and unions staged actions in over 80 cities.
The current upsurge in student/labor unity which was born from various campus movements and the anti-globalization movement is continuing its upward march. On hundreds of campuses, thousands of students from every walk of life are fighting alongside labor to gain living wages, workers’ rights and to struggle against corporate greed
With the economic crisis deepening and the Bush administration assaulting student and workers’ rights, there is reason enough to stand up and fight back. SLAP, a joint program of the United States Student Association (USSA) and Jobs with Justice (JWJ), has taken a national leadership role in the movement to strengthen the alliance between workers and students.
Treston Faulkner, co-coordinator of SLAP, said in an interview with Dynamic, “The students have the power to make demands on schools and the ability to improve working conditions.�
Students and workers see this as a two-way street, because most students are young workers or will soon become workers, and both labor and students see this as a fight to save and improve working conditions now and in the future.
Faulkner attributed to this upsurge to the changing political context at U.S. universities, "With the dismantling of affirmative action and funding programs in many states, it is critical for students to indentify with working people, because they are being threatened. In the process of struggling for workers’ rights, students are building class consiousness."
“Education is a right not just for the rich and white!� chanted a multiracial group of over 100 students, trade unionists and religious and community activists in front of the gates of Brown University.
After a brief series of speeches explaining the importance of living wages to families and communities, as well as to students seeking an education, the group marched into University Hall and delivered more than 700 signed postcards in support of the demands for fair wages for student and professional workers at Brown.
“Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,� said Andrea Mercado, a member of the Brown Student Labor Alliance. “That’s a significant number, because today the lowest paid workers at Brown received 33 times less than the highest paid employee. And if you are a temp or student worker, you make 55 times less! The university should honor King’s memory and provide living wages and health care to all of its staff.�
After the action, the group assembled in the Afro-American Studies building for a screening of At the River I Stand, a documentary about the historic 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and King’s involvement and assassination. The film was followed by a panel discussion about King’s radicalism and its relevance to contemporary struggles against racism and economic injustice. The film was shown around the country in conjunction with labor solidarity demonstrations and actions.
More than 300 students and workers also rallied at Washington Place and Washington Square East in New York City. A number of the nearby New York University students showed up to give their support to the NYU clerk and technician union. There were a number of speakers that represented groups from NYU and Columbia University. Adjunct professors spoke out against the unfair working conditions and low wages they are forced to live with.
Speakers from UNITE! Local 169 spoke up about the organizing of local food market and green-grocer workers. The crowd chanted “No more green sweatshops.�
The group also marched to Fifth Avenue chanting “We are the students! The mighty mighty students!�
Protests at Stanford University in California, Yale University in Connecticutt and elsewhere targeted universities’ sweatshop agreements and the undemocratic and exploitative Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) set to be signed at the end of April in Quebec City, Canada.
United Students Against Sweatshops and Action Coalition at George Washington University in DC scored a major victory on April 4th at their rally protesting GWU’s inadequate sweatshop policy.
Over 100 people gathered, forcing GWU to be the 77th university to join the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent sweatshop verification agency comprised of universities, workers and human rights groups, and students.
April 4 actions this year build on the growing campus movements against sweatshops, private prisons and for livable wages for campus workers, and marks significant growth over last year’s events.
“Next year will be even bigger,� said Faulkner. “We intend for the Student Labor Day of Action to become an annual event that reminds students and workers alike who their natural allies are.�
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