Student Social Action for Labor Rights

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Labor Rights

Definition

When we talk about Labor Rights or Workers Rights, the focus in on the conditions of Labor in a particular situation. Labor is one of the three factors of production in Classical Economics, alongside with Land and Capital, and is of course essential to the the functioning of every society and system of production. Economists measure the rate of retribution that each factor of production gets from its input. In this case, the important rate is the "Rate of Returns to Labor". Some critics of the current system of production use the argument of the lowering and lowering returns to Labor, as an indicator of the lowering living standard of working families. This is not to say that CEOs of large corporations are getting pay cuts. Even more, we know that the opposite is occuring. Nevertheless, lower returns to labor occur in the most basic stages of production, not at high managerial positions.

If a lowering rate of return to Labor is paired with a higher rate of return to Capital, an issue of class and classism arises. Who are those who own the majority of Capital resources in the United States? Not the working classes. A simpler way of understanding this is the following premise: this process makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The working classes only have their Human Capital, their Labor to take to the market. This is a clear example of structural or macro-level working of classism.

Labor Injustices in Colleges & Universities

Unfair Labor can and probably does occur everywhere. The t-shirt you are wearing may have been sowed by 12 year-old children, who get paid 7 cents an hour; the person that cooks your food, cleans the floors at your dorm, washes your bathrooms, they might all be victims of Unfair Labor.

Campus Workers

A college community is composed by:

• Students
• Faculty
• Administrators
• Non-student workers

Even though student workers can be underpaid, the focus in general is directed to full-time non-student workers that can be and usually are underpaid, especially in big Universities. The definition of underpayment in such situation is linked not only to minimum wage for the particular State, but also to State indicators of the minimum amount of money a family needs monthly to support itself and not fall below the poverty line. Students at colleges and universities nationwide were appaled when they discovered that workers in their school had to go on welfare because their wage could not support their family. The Harvard Living Wage Campaign's slogan was: "Workers can't eat prestige". Unfair Labor does not only have to do with wages, but also with impossibility to unionize, lack of benefits, etc.

Sweatshops

There is no common consensus as to how exactly a sweatshop is defined. SweatshopWatch uses the following one:

A sweatshop is a workplace that violates the law and where workers are subject to:

• Extreme exploitation, including the absence of a living wage or long work hours,

• Poor working conditions, such as health and safety hazards,

• Arbitrary discipline, such as verbal or physical abuse, or

• Fear and intimidation when they speak out, organize, or attempt to form a union.

A broad definition would include any workplace in which unfair labor practices happen. The relation of these workplaces with colleges and universities is that generally apparel but many other things as well that are sold at the school, with or without the school logo, can be made at these places. The concept put forth by students protesting This of course is not a problem of colleges and universities in themselves, but rather of entire sectors of the economy, including the garment industry. The root of the widespread use of sweatshops can be traced to the modern economic concept of outsourcing and the effects of Economic Globalization and Free Trade Agreements, all which will be discussed in Section 2.2

Activism for Workers' Rights

Student Social Action for Workers Rights, closely linked to struggles against classism, is part of a larger tradition of activism in colleges and universities both at the US and elsewhere. First, we will discuss the History and tradition of activism in the US, and then focus on some of the causes for the rise of this new movement in the 1990s that continues until today. We will also describe and analize several different current student organizations, their successes and challenges still ahead. Finally, we will provide means and ideas for students at Dickinson to Get Involved and fight injustice at their college or university.

History

The student struggle for workers rights has perhaps its initial seeds in the coalition between student organization and labor unions. However, the actual movement for Labor Rights is stemmed in the struggle against Globalization and its consequences. It is a battle against the order established, against injustices both on the personal and the public sphere, both at home and far away; and that is a struggle that has a long history:

"Although the first nationally organized student movement in America occured in the 1930s, student opposition to the established order had a long tradition. The history of protest within and against American colleges and universities is nearly as old as the institutions themselves. While most undergraduates have tended to be inactive and passive, the have had periods of sudden and explosive activity. From the earliest days, college students in the United States have rebelled against what they considered repressive authority and unrepresentative administrations."

(Brax, 1981, p.3)

Student activism is clearly a long-lasting tradition in the United States. In fact, the first student rebellion in a college or university in this country happened in 1766 at Harvard University (Brax, 1981, p.3). Nevertheless, this phenomenon has not had consistency throughout the decades. During the 1930s, as Brax suggests "change [...] occurred in most students' life styles and political views, change that proved to be significant because it involved students for the first time in the broades societal issues of war and peace and the protection of civil liberties." (Brax, 1981, p.17) However, the movement died out in the beginning of the 1940s with the US involvement in the Second World War, when the peace and anti-interventionism ideals lost most of its appeals.

The 1960s are, according to Robert Rhoads, the "high-water mark of student protest"(1998, p.vii). In his own words:

"It is particularly the decade of the 1960s that speaks to the actions of contemporary student activists. The democratic concerns of the 1960s [...] launched major campus movements against social inequality, limited student rights, and American Imperialism. [...] While the Civil Rights Movement had launched a momentous wave of student activism, it was the Peace Movement that closed the door on the decade of campus unrest."

(Rhoads, 1998, p.viii-5)

The 1960s were not only a time of high student activism in the United States, but also in many other places in the world. It's an interesting coincidence to note that during the Spring of 1968, students were taking control of the Sorbonne in Paris, Columbia University in New York City and the National University of Mexico, in Mexico City. The French May was qualified by Jean-Paul Sartre as one of the most important revolutionary moments in History.

The 1960s gave way to the 70s, and even though student activism grew and exploded in other parts of the world, especially in Latin America, the US movement receded:

"No one is quite sure what happened. Maybe the few most commited activists who tended to generate the passion of protest simply burned out or graduated and got on with their lives. By the mid-1970s the economy had slowed down and perhaps students had more to worry about than 'equity and justice for all.'[...]Instead of campus wars over policies and politics, the vast majority of students of the mid to late 1970s waged their battle against polyester and embraced political apathy."

(Rhoads, 1998, p.55)

The 1970s and 1980s saw perhaps a rise in other types of activism, but the common struggle against the larger structural injustices of the system experienced a strong decline. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that at this point there seems to be a diversification and separation between different struggles, which in the past could have been seen together. The Civil Rights Movement in the 60s gave way to the Peace Movement, and they were strongly linked in the search for justice and equality. During the following decades, movements against sexism, heterosexism, racism, environmental justice, all took their own separate paths, becoming independent movements.

The movement that arises in the 1990s and peaks in 2000 for Labor Rights can be linked with the auge of the 1960 simply because of its challenge of the whole structure of society. Globalization and Neoliberalism reinforced a process as old as the system itself, that one that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The fight for Labor Rights falls into a larger scheme of an "Anti-Globalization" movement, as the media has tagged it. According to Naomi Klein, there is inherent irony in this tag, because this movement is "turning Globalization into a living reality, much more than a 'multinational' will ever be able to". (2002, p.15)

Globalization & Inequality

"Globalization has created a world without walls, an explosion of democracy and diversity within democracy"

Bill Clinton, at University of California at Berkeley

Outsourcing

Sweatshops

Pepsi & Burma

USAS

Living Wage

Student Organizations

"These kids have grown up in an era when the role of marketing is to cool-hunt, to find and co-opt the latest, most cutting-edge, most radical ideas coming out of this culture. But I think that growing up in that context has pushed some people in this generation to think about what isn't co-optable. And that's in part why I think we're seeing a deeper questioning of the way capitalism works."

Naomi Klein, talking about College Students (Cooper, 2001)

United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)

Workers Rights Consortium (WRC)

Living Wage

Campus Activism