"Organizers of the Living Wage Campaign at the University of Virginia are modeling their effort after successful student-led campaigns at other universities, including a nine-day hunger strike at Georgetown last spring.

The students promise more direct action in the wake of the April 15 arrests of 17 students who, during a four-day sit-in, refused to leave Madison Hall, which houses the office of President John T. Casteen III.

“I think what Casteen is counting on is that the kids are going home in a couple of weeks and that this is going to go away,” said Jan Cornell, president of the Staff Union at UVa. “This has galvanized us and the community.”

The student-led campaign is pressuring the university into raising the minimum pay for its lowest-paid employees to $10.72 an hour, a wage they argue is a “living wage” in the local marketplace.

UVa raised its minimum hiring rate in December to $8.88 an hour, which is 72 percent more than the federal minimum wage and 30 percent more than the state classified system minimum hire rate. Last month, the university announced another raise in the pay rate, to $9.37 an hour. Casteen attributed the increase in the hourly rate to a market-survey analysis. University officials also have repeatedly emphasized the value benefits add.

Casteen ended Friday’s State of the University Address by speaking about the opportunities for workers at UVa.

“They say that the capacity to make dramatic differences in people’s lives are out there and not far away,” he said. “The opportunities for advancement as employees take advantage of the educational programs we offer; the opportunities for better and fair compensation; and the opportunities … are larger at this point than at any time in my recollection or knowledge.”

How others did it

According to calculations in early March, UVa’s academic division had 342 full-time salaried and six part-time employees who made less than $10.72 an hour. The Medical Center employed 409 full-time salaried and 52 part-time employees who brought home less than $10.72 an hour.

The lowest-paid workers at universities across the state take home varying amounts per hour, topping out at $10.40 at George Mason University and then the University of Mary Washington at $9.18, the College of William & Mary at $9, James Madison University at $8 and $7.47 at Virginia Tech. The lowest rate at Virginia Military Institute, UVa’s College at Wise and Virginia State University is $6.83.

Before the UVa sit-in began, a former participant in the March 2005 Georgetown hunger strike traveled to Charlottesville to support the UVa push for higher wages. She’s been a constant presence at recent UVa Living Wage Campaign events.

“I still feel optimistic about what’s going on here,” said Diane Foglizzo, who graduated from Georgetown a year ago after starving herself to force Georgetown to raise its contract workers’ minimum pay rate.

Foglizzo is a full-time staff member of the Washington-based Living Wage Action Coalition, a group of students and recent graduates from across the country who use their experiences in living wage campaigns to bolster those at other schools.

“The amount of student and faculty support surpasses the support we had at Georgetown,” she said. “They’re definitely on the road to success and I believe in my heart that something’s going to happen this semester.”

Students at Georgetown demanded the school raise its lowest pay rate from $8.50 an hour to $14.93 an hour, Foglizzo said. When the university refused, the students held a nine-day hunger strike. It ended when Georgetown officials and students negotiated to set a future pay rate at $14 an hour.

Student protests for living wages at the University of Mary Washington, Harvard, Stanford and Washington University in St. Louis also have netted results. At the University of Miami, students and workers last week were fasting over workers’ rights.

Defending their actions

Some members of the Charlottesville and university community have criticized the students for forcing their way into Madison Hall, arguing that coercion isn’t going to help them get their way. But the students have defended their action, insisting that their sit-in was a last resort to convince administrators to pay workers at least $10.72 an hour.

Following a four-day sit-in that began April 12, Casteen ordered the arrests of 17 students after he and other administrators spent April 15 negotiating with them. Casteen proposed to join with the protesters to further evaluate the living wage and offered to help the students meet with legislators in the General Assembly. The students asked for more time and refused to back down.

Casteen and other administrators had met previously with a small group of UVa Living Wage Campaign organizers, but the students left the meeting displeased with the officials’ responses.

“We’ve done about everything else we could do,” Cornell said. “There had to be significant action. Talking hasn’t worked. [The sit-in] has raised the bar.”

Sit-ins and hunger strikes push universities into the media spotlight, Foglizzo said. Media coverage, an educated campus, supportive faculty and students and outspoken staff put a university in a position where it has to take action, she said.

Adam Stone, a Washington-based researcher and consultant who earned two degrees from Stanford, has extensively interviewed students fighting for living wages. He found commonalities among the campaigns. Successful campaigns involve unions, he said.

“It’s essential the living wage campaign involves and empowers the union,” Stone said. “The students are going to graduate in no more than three years and universities know this and they know they can sit it out.”

The students lead the process, but the workers must be equipped to continue the cause, he said.

Union-supported

The Staff Union is “100 percent” behind the students, said Cornell, who said she’s talked to 100 campaign-supporting UVa employees in the past few weeks. Almost all have remained silent publicly because they fear they’ll lose their jobs if they speak up, Cornell said.

“Everyone quit criticizing the workers for not joining in with this,” she said. “They’re afraid.”

Stone also noted that hunger strikes and sit-ins “put pressure on the university and [are] a huge part of changing the university’s policies.”

In the early 1960s, Paul Gaston, a civil rights activist and UVa professor emeritus, participated in sit-ins in area theaters, restaurants and motels. He explained the historical context and purpose of sit-ins and other direct actions.

“Civil disobedience, not as a first resort, but as a near or last resort, has been a common action that students and others have taken, so it’s not surprising,” he said of the UVa living wage sit-in.

“I continue to hope some amicability will develop between the students and the president,” Gaston added.

Casteen has repeatedly said that the minimum hiring rate can only be adjusted as a result of a market-survey analysis and that any other powers rest in Richmond. Cornell and others remain unconvinced and insist that local and national media attention will effect change.

“UVa would be a hero if it did this, but they think it would show they’re weak and caved into demands,” she said. “The university’s always saying it’s ‘the man.’ Well, be ‘the man.’”" (Melanie Mayhew, The Daily Progress, April 22, 2006)