Student activist groups held a May Day rally Friday to advocate labor rights and highlight university workers’ struggles to gain fair work conditions.
University workers united last semester to speak out against discrimination in the workplace – particularly against non-English speaking workers – and held forums to protest low wages, shift changes and sexual harassment. Six months after workers’ groups pushed their harassment into the public eye, union officials have succeeded in re-opening contract discussions.
Friday’s rally featured a coalition of student groups who voiced concerns about immigrants’, workers’ and graduate students’ rights in honor of May Day, a date which historically recognizes the labor movement.
“There are so many issues here XXXXXX
on campus,” said Carter Thomas, president of Students and Workers Unite!. “We want to make clear that campus labor activism is currently going on.”
A group of 25 people gathered for the event sponsored by Students and Workers Unite!, Feminism Without Borders, College Park Students for a Democratic Society, the Asian American Student Union and Community Roots.
Landscape Technician Supervisor Craig Newman, who also represents a local workers union, said there are still labor problems at the university but acknowledged that they are being addressed.
“This is about respect and justice,” Newman said. “I’m tired of seeing people respected because they have money or control. It is not just about personal wealth.”
Newman said discussions between workers and upper administration are going on now, though he said he did not expect a solution to be reached for several weeks.
Newman’s main point of contention was the change in housekeeping shifts imposed by the administration last semester, saving the university $300,000, Newman said.
“The easiest place to save money is among those who don’t speak,” Newman said. “But now, we are willing to talk.”
About four years ago, the housekeeping staff came in at 10 p.m. and worked until 6:30 a.m., allowing workers to do their jobs while the academic buildings were empty. But due to budget constraints, the administration changed the shift from 4 a.m. to noon, giving the workers only four hours before students and faculty flooded the buildings.
Not only does the new shift make it more difficult for workers to do their jobs, Newman said, but the change has also resulted in a decrease in pay. Though the university did not officially cut any wages, workers received a $1-per-hour bonus when working between 1 p.m. and 2 a.m., a time slot the new shift does not fall into.
Newman urged the crowd to write into administrators and ask them to give workers relief from a shift that he called “harder, faster and more dangerous.”
Junior family studies major Rosa Lozano, who spoke at the rally on behalf of Feminism Without Borders and called for the university to sign an anti-sweatshop petition, said she understood the workers’ pleas.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Lozano said. “I think that an institution like this, in order to support the education of future professionals, cannot deny workers’ basic rights. As students, we have the responsibility to speak up for them.”
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