Ian Mikusko
The AVI campus food service workers--fighting for a just contract with full family health benefits and a pension plan--engage in a lunch-hour work stoppage, and the students get their back....in large numbers.
The video was shot and edited by Monica Wise,a member of Sarah Lawrence College Worker Justice, who, in addition to fighting alongside the workers for union representation and a fair contract, is filming a documentary on the workers' struggle. Enjoy the action:
Kyle Schafer
Campus dining workers from DePaul talk about their jobs in this great video from the DePaul Committee for Social Justice.
Email depaullivingwage[at]gmail.com for info on getting involved in the campaign, and sign the petition here.
Kyle Schafer
We wanted to let all of you know about an awesome conference, Trade Action Camp, happening at the University of Central Florida March 27-28. Trade Action Camp is a national conference of students activists and interested individuals who work on issues of fair trade and trade justice. It is being organized by two national student organizations: The United Students for Fair Trade and The Student Trade Justice Campaign.
You can find out more at www.tradeactioncamp.com and the event's Facebook page.
This event is an opportunity for students, producers, educators, vendors, and other players in the Trade Justice movement to come together and share knowledge, experiences, and ideas. This year’s Convergence will have a strong focus on addressing the most current and pressing global crises and mobilizing the responses to these crises to implement solutions—both the Economic and Climate Crisis movement as a whole and the student movement in particular. The concept behind “Trade Action Camp” is to inspire student activists to challenge the Trade Justice movement to continue evolving by creating new goals and new interpretations of what Trade Justice is and should be.
If you want to spread the word, here's a flyer you can post around campus!
Ian Mikusko
As I’ve mentioned before, the food service workers at Sarah Lawrence College—employees of AVI Foodsystems—are fighting for a contract with full family health benefits, decent wages, a secure retirement plan, and the assurance that they’ll receive respect on the job. Yesterday the workers at the two main food service locations, The Pub and Bates, stopped working in the middle of the lunch hour to protest the current state of affairs, and to demand a fair contract from AVI.
And the workers were not alone! SLC Worker Justice, a student organization devoted to supporting campus workers, organized the students and faculty to be a part of the workers’ action. As the work stoppage began, these students chanted with the workers, spoke out in support of the workers and encouraged other students to join the group as we marched across campus. As the group moved from The Pub to Bates to the Student Life Committee meeting, the group grew from around 10 students to over 100. Almost every patron in the entire cafeteria joined the workers in chants demanding a fair contract and health insurance.
I’ll post video footage of the action in the coming days—there was great worker and student testimony that I’d like to share with the Stir It Up community. For now, I’d just like to thank the students who have been so involved and supportive in the workers’ struggle! SLC Worker Justice had been passing out the above leaflet at almost every meal for the past week-and-a-half, educating the rest of the campus about the workers situation and mobilizing the entire community to support the workers when the time came. Yesterday it came…and if AVI doesn’t change their tune in negotiation, it will come again.
Ian Mikusko
A couple of months ago, Stir It Up had a student conference in Chicago. Students from Northwestern, DePaul and Loyola all got together to learn more about the food service industry, hear from food service workers and to learn some of the organizing and research skills that make campus organizing successful.
Well, now....Stir It Up is going Hollywood!
On Saturday April 10th on the USC campus, students from universities all over Los Angeles and Orange County will be getting together for the second Stir It Up conference. All students are welcome to this free event. To register please fill out this online form.
We'll have more about this conference as we get closer to the date. In the meantime please make sure to fill the registration to reserve your spot at the conference.
Kyle Schafer
The Northwestern Living Wage Campaign has an important rally coming up next week. We encourage all students in the Chicago area to come out to support. Complete an "I'll be there form" if you're definitely going to attend.
For those of you not familiar with the Northwestern campus, "the Arch" referenced in the flyer is at Sheridan and Chicago Aves. in Evanston, IL. It is a short walk from the Davis Purple Line stop.
Check out the event on Facebook, as well as the video invite!
Kyle Schafer
Today, Unite Here International President John Wilhelm issued a statement in support of the Northwestern Living Wage Campaign. Just thought we'd take a moment to share:
“Thousands of dining hall workers, janitors, security guards and support staff make our nation’s wonderful universities function. Colleges should strive to create inclusive educational communities that recognize the hard work of those often invisible people who make these beacons of higher education operate on a day to day basis. University budgets should not be balanced on the backs of working people. Our nation’s labor movement is strengthened by students like those involved in Northwestern’s Living Wage Campaign fighting to make sure workers are treated fairly with dignity and respect. Hundreds of thousands of working families across America stand with students at Northwestern in calling for university workers to be paid a living wage.”
Kyle Schafer
In a long-overdue Stir It Up-date, the students and workers at Northwestern University are waging an impressive campaign for living wages for campus workers. Though we at Stir It Up are not running this campaign, we are doing everything we can do to help out.
For now, I want to just share a few bits:
For a compelling story of the importance of living wage campaigns, read Unite Here Local 450 member Maurice Nix's column that ran in the student publications North by Northwestern and the Daily Northwestern. Nix, known as the "sandwich guy" in Northwestern's student center and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, writes, "Like in Birmingham in the 1960s, we are not asking for the world, we are asking for basic dignity and respect."
We encourage students from across the country to sign onto Northwestern's living wage petition and invite your friends to do the same by joining the Facebook event for the petition.
The campaign is taking an important step this Thursday -- students will deliver Valentine's Day cards to the University administration encouraging them to "have a heart" for campus workers.
As more events unfold, we'll keep you posted.
Kyle Schafer
Just a quick thought: if Compass really wants to kick-start its new flexitiarian initiative, it might want to share this recent article about a filler (referred to by one USDA microbiologist as “pink slime”) that its producer, Beef Products, Inc., reports is used in a majority of the hamburgers sold nationwide. Check it out:
Ian Mikusko
Last semester, Hunter College students, faculty and staff united in support of the College’s cafeteria workers. These workers, employees of the College’s food service vendor, AVI 
Foodsystems, were facing the prospect of losing their free family health benefits after AVI took over the contract from Sodexo. Thanks, not only to the bravery of the workers and their refusal to accept dramatic concessions, but to the support of the Hunter College students and faculty, the workers won a good contract—one that included fully paid health benefits for their families.
Foodsystems, were facing the prospect of losing their free family health benefits after AVI took over the contract from Sodexo. Thanks, not only to the bravery of the workers and their refusal to accept dramatic concessions, but to the support of the Hunter College students and faculty, the workers won a good contract—one that included fully paid health benefits for their families. Here’s testimony from Owen Hill, one of the students who fought in solidarity with the men and women who serve food to the Hunter College community. You can learn more about student-worker campaigns at UNITE HERE’s student-worker solidarity site.
"The majority of Hunter students are working class students; not only do we come from working class households, but most of us work to make it through school. So it’s only natural that Unite Here Local 100’s fight to save our cafeteria workers’ raises, pensions, andhealth care struck such a chord with Hunter’s student body. For, just like the workers that Hunter students so proudly stood in solidarity with, every day our living standards and those of our families are continuing to melt under the withering blows of slashed budgets, greedy employers and a deregulated banking system. Indeed, the response on our campus was so enormous that AVI Foodsystems, the cafeteria workers’ employer, was forced to back down on the vast majority of their demands before the student/faculty boycott of the cafeteria even began. The resounding victory of Unite Here Local 100 and the courageous workers over a company that was demanding substantial concessions, points the way forward for students and workers alike, and reminds us all once again that solidarity really is the only way to win."
Preach on, Owen! As someone who was involved in the fight that brought students and workers together at Hunter College, I can tell you that Owen’s testimony is no overstatement.
Unfortunately, AVI Foodsystems seems to have not learned their lesson from the student-worker solidarity they had to deal with at Hunter. At nearby Sarah Lawrence College, where AVI also took over the contract to provide food service, workers and students have formed an alliance to fight for fair compensation for the food service workers at the College. Having won union recognition with Local 100 several months ago, the workers at Sarah Lawrence, along with their student allies, are now fighting for a similar contract to that won by the workers at Hunter College. So far, AVI has been resistant to accepting the reasonable position of the workers and has not been willing to budge on providing the workers with full family health benefits.
Check back for updates on Sarah Lawrence as the battle for full health benefits and a fair contract unfolds.
Photo, by Shane Valazquez, is of Owen Hill speaking at October 5th 2009 rally for AVI cafeteria workers outside Hunter College.
