LDP: What is the Student Labor Action Project? When was it founded?
AR: In 1999, Jobs with Justice and the United States Students Association (USSA) joined together to create the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) to support, advise, and solidify the student/labor work that is energizing campuses and communities across the country. SLAP maximizes the depth and breadth of this dynamic part of the student movement by facilitating networking, training, material development and technical assistance for student activists, especially young working class activists of color.
LDP: What is the Student Labor Week of Action? Who participates? What happened during the week last year?
AR: SLAP has coordinated national student/labor actions since 2000. In 2003, students and workers came together for over 280 events during the fourth annual National Student Labor Week of Action. Addressing a range of issues from sweatshops to living wages to the right to organize for campus workers, students and labor came together to win concrete victories and build a more powerful movement.
AR: This year, the NAACP Youth and College Division, TransAfrica, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (MEChA), Organization of Chinese Americans, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), Student Action with Farmworkers, Not With Our Money, and Sierra Student Coalition are endorsing organizations who will be involved, as well as various unions.
LDP: When is the week of action and what is the significance of the dates?
AR: From March 29 - April 4, 2004, students and workers will celebrate the lives of Cesar Estrada Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by joining together to demand justice for workers on their campuses and in their communities. March 31st is Cesar E. Chavez Day, and April 4th will mark the 36-year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination and the too-often untold legacy of the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike.
Throughout his life, Dr. King struggled not only for civil rights for African-Americans, but for respect, dignity, and economic justice for all. At the end of his life Dr. King focused his energy on the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike as part of his Poor People's Campaign to expand the civil rights agenda to the economy.
LDP: What can young people and students do to participate this year?
AR: Young people and students can sign-up at: www.jwj.org. I will then call them and send them a packet of organizing materials. Folks can organize everything from a viewing of "At the River I Stand," a powerful documentary about the Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike, to a walk-out or sit-in, et cetera, depending on what stage of a campaign they are at.
LDP: Why is student/labor solidarity important?
AR: Student/labor solidarity is important because we cannot win alone. The student movement by itself is weaker without labor on its side and, vice versa, the labor movement by itself is weaker without the student movement and the community on its side. We all wish some unions were more radical than they are, but the truth is that the working class is getting beat down by Bush and his cronies. We will not be able to rise up from the stifling oppression unless we join together and build this movement together as young people, students, and workers. As the great leader Cesar E. Chavez said, "Si se puede!"
Ana Rizo is the National Coordinator of the Student Labor Action Project. She comes from a beautiful working class Mexican immigrant familia in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from UC Santa Barbara.
Libero Della Piana is one of the National Coordinators of the YCL.
|
Top level
Dynamic Magazine
