Johns Hopkins living wage campaign
'President Brody you can't hide'
By Andre
Powell
Baltimore
Johns Hopkins University President William R. Brody can't
hide from the struggle of service workers at Johns Hopkins
Hospital, Sinai Hospital and Greater Baltimore Medical
Center.
Johns Hopkins--a billion-dollar institution--includes not
only the Homewood campus but also a world-renowned medical
institution. Brody heads up both these institutions--the
largest private-sector employers in Baltimore.
The demands of the more than 2,500 nursing assistance,
dietary workers, housekeepers and other service and
maintenance workers--all represented by Service Employees
District 1199E-DC--are modest. They are asking for a wage of
at least $10 an hour, a pension they can retire on and the
right to freely decide to join the union without interference
from supervisors.
Brody and the rest of management have been intransigent.
But the workers have found strong allies within the student
body at Johns Hopkins.
On March 27, Brody tried to deliver an illustrious speech
at the 125th anniversary of the prestigious university.
Members of the Student Labor Action Committee unfurled a
banner supporting the workers, interrupting his talk.
Brody also came under fire for not responding to
harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students
on campus. So he agreed to introduce the keynote speaker for
their Awareness Days--a virtually unprecedented move by a
university president.
To Brody's shock, he had put himself in the position of
introducing Workers World newspaper Managing Editor Leslie
Feinberg. He had to tell students that she is a socialist, a
lesbian transgender activist, a national organizer for the
International Action Center and a founder of Rainbow Flags
for Mumia.
Then Brody announced he had "to run" to a reception.
"Don't leave," Feinberg called him back from the podium.
"I and other unionists and activists around the country are
watching the corporate shame you preside over here." She
explained that 63 percent of Johns Hopkins service workers
last year earned incomes so low they were eligible for food
stamps.
"President Brody, you make $446,419 a year. That's about
$37,000 a month. How do you expect your workers to exist on
an average monthly pension of $283 a month?"
Feinberg told the audience, "My talk tonight is about what
to do when a president or CEO like Brody says no to just
demands."
Brody was forced to sit and listen to half an hour of a
speech that used the Living Wage Campaign and the struggle of
lesbian, gay, bi and trans Johns Hopkins students as examples
of the need to build a diverse, inclusive and militant
movement, in which everyone fights shoulder to shoulder for a
broad list of demands.
When Brody tried to sneak out unnoticed, he saw that he
had to get through a standing-room-only crowd in the back
that consisted of many of the student activists in the Living
Wage Campaign.
"Thanks for dropping in," Feinberg mocked him from the
podium.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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