On the picket line

Farmworkers march on Albany, N.Y.

About 100 farmworkers and their supporters held a “March for Justice” across upstate New York from April 29 to May 3. Traveling more than 200 miles through apple-growing country, the workers took their demands for the right to collective bargaining, overtime pay, a day of rest each week and disability rights to the state capital.

One of the marchers told the May 3 Finger Lakes Times that the farmworkers, many of whom are immigrants, often labor 70 hours a week for only $6 an hour. The average farmworker in that region makes less than $8,000 a year.

One worker, who wouldn’t risk losing her job by giving her name, said through a translator, “My goals are to receive
better treatment and have more rights.”

Vanessa Margan, who works with Farm worker Legal Services in Roches ter, noted, “Without the right to collective bargaining, farmworkers can be too
easily replaced.”

Marching behind a banner that read “Farmworkers deserve equal rights,” the workers chanted, “Si se puede”—It can be done!—and “Que queremos? Justicia!” —What do we want? Justice!—as they set off from Albion. A number of groups sponsored the march, including the Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agricolas and Rural Opportunities.

Workers win at Washington U.

Thanks to a 19-day student sit-in, the workers at Washington University in St. Louis will be getting significant raises. In a ground-breaking agreement finalized April 22, the administration agreed to pay $1 million over the next two years toward salary and benefits for low-paid contract workers.

A new joint student/university committee will include representatives of the Student Worker Alliance that organized the sit-in. The committee’s charge: to change university policies to better meet the needs of lower-paid service workers. These include protecting the right to bargain collectively and working toward providing living wages and benefits for all those directly or indirectly employed by the university.

“I’m so thrilled with what these students have won!” said janitor Chyrstal Wells in an April 26 media release issued by Jobs with Justice, which fights for higher wages and better working conditions for janitors and other low-paid workers. “I’ve never worked at a place where the people I perform services for take up for you like this.”

SWA is part of the Student-Labor Action Project, a national movement to promote workers’ rights on college
campuses. Members of SLAP have won victories at Harvard, Stanford and most recently at Georgetown. SLAP is a joint project of the United States Student Association and Jobs with Justice.

Howard workers fight for living wage

Custodians and housekeepers at Howard University, members of SEIU Local 82, have been in contract negotiations for more than six months. Some workers make just $8.65 an hour while President H. Patrick Swygert makes $203.85 an hour.

Take the case of Ollie Fulmore, who has to work 80 hours a week to provide for his four children. Because Fulmore earns only $8.65 an hour for his housekeeping job, he has to work a second job in food service just to pay the bills.

Howard refuses to bring the wages of the lowest-paid workers above $10 an hour, even though housekeepers at other universities in the area already earn more. Workers at Georgetown University will be earning $14 an hour by 2007, thanks to the recent dramatic hunger strike by Georgetown students.

Subhead: CSU teaching associates win first contract

It took seven months of intense bargaining after a hard-fought organizing drive for 6,000 teaching associates, graduate assistants and instructional student assistants to win their first contract at California State University on May 12.

This win by the California Alliance of Academic Student Employees, a unit of the Auto Workers, is part of the struggle to win union recognition, higher pay and respect for those who labor in the halls of academe.