Twenty students at the University of Virginia are starving, but not only because they haven’t eaten in 10 days.
They’re starved for justice from an administration they say has failed to provide a living wage for its employees, and so they began a hunger strike on February 18. Their demands: Pay UVA workers more–at least $13 per hour–and ensure safe working conditions. According to UVA’s Living Wage Campaign, the lowest paid service workers at the institution are primarily women of color, making as little as $7.25 an hour. At the same time, the campaign says, six out of the top ten highest paid state workers in Virginia hold administrative positions at the school.
After 14 years of mobilizing through sit-ins, meetings, rallies and teach-ins, the group has now resorted to their most extreme act of protest in an effort to end what they describe as “a perpetuation of economic violence against the UVA workforce.”
In an exclusive interview with the Ms. Blog, striker Hallie Clark, a queer feminist of color, describes her place in the movement and why all feminists should be concerned about the living wage.
College students are often criticized for taking on big issues absent any real connection. What are the personal connections students have with living wage advocacy and how do you understand your place of privilege?
I think of my place of privilege as only a first step towards the end goal of worker empowerment. We are not, and have never been, a service organization. We are an organization that aspires to become “workers and students united” and we are hopeful that this campaign will be able to be maintained by employees with student support.
Our goal is to disrupt the power structure and open enough space so that workers can step in. Workers here are constantly afraid (and rightfully so) of retaliation. Since the hunger strike many of the contract workers have been told not to talk about the Living Wage Campaign with each other or with us. We have built deep relationships with workers; to the extent that we can we use their words, offering worker testimony with name changes for their safety.
