From: mackinn@fas.harvard.edu
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 15:10:39 EDT
** TONIGHT ** 8 pm **
Campus Community Solidarity Committee * Conference Call
530-642-5373
Gabe Pendas (gabeoi79@yahoo.com) and i (mackinn@fas.harvard.edu) are
facilitating.
here is the agenda and the living wage proposal from the august affiliates
gathering. as you'll see in the agenda, we're going to be pretty pressed for
time--we've got one hour for the call. please *do* call in, but also *please
please* read the agenda and proposal first. (we will assume on the call that
people have already read it.)
thanks,
emma
718.469.3843
__
AGENDA for CCSC conference call 9/4/2
1. Intros: name, place, affiliation/what you work on (3 minutes max)
2. what the CCSC is and how it operates: (12 minutes)
a. structure:
1. bottomliner (review responsibilities: coordinating calls, reportbacks
to the CC and general membership, coordinating external communication,
following up on work assigned during calls)CC member or solicited from
elsewhere?; whats the selection process?
2. recruitment and outreach for the CCSC
3. logistics: calls (every other week); list-serves
b. what we do (goals and responsibilities):
1. what our purpose is and where our campaigns come from (allies,
affiliates, national gatherings) (the allies part includes immigrant and
community groups, as well as unions, although a longer discussion of how
to enhance communication and coordination with such groups will be on a
later call)
2. what we can do for those campaigns generally (somewhat redundant to the
breakout in boston) / what our campaigns are currently
3. Nationally-Coordinated Living Wage Campaignsproposal from Augusts
affiliates gathering (20
minutes)
a. review the proposal
b. review where were at on living wage campaigns nowwhat campaigns are
going strong, what the opportunities are for new and/or stronger
campaigns, how outreach and support have happened so far
c. rough plan for how to fulfill the proposal over the next year; plan how
to start that work in the next few weeks and delegate
4. Justice for Janitors in Boston (20 minutes)
a. update on negotiations and campaign, as well as student involvement so
far (whats happened, whats planned, and whos involved in Boston)
b. discuss and delegate what we can do both as the national organization,
with Boston affiliates, and with national affiliates
5. Walmart and UFCW (5 minutes)
briefly: review what it is and what we want to do
__
RESOLUTION PASSED UNCHANGED UNANIMOUSLY
2) Proposal for a National USAS ˇ§Living Wageˇ¨ Campaign
By Ben McKean and Jackie Bray
USAS rose to prominence and effectiveness with what we now call our ˇ§Sweat-
Free Campus campaign;ˇ¨ in waves of sit-ins and direct actions, students across
the country spoke with one voice and demanded a code of conduct for the
factories that produce collegiate apparel. Our anti-sweatshop campaign has
evolved significantly in the four years since students at Duke won the first
campus code: after winning codes, we demanded and won full disclosure of
factory locations so that code compliance could be verified, and then we
demanded and won university participation in a verification mechanism, the
Workers Rights Consortium. In doing so, USAS fundamentally reoriented from
victories on our campus to victories in the field. An anti-sweatshop victory
for USAS today is more likely to be the successful conclusion of a student-
supported worker struggle than it is to be students marching from their
administration with a fresh piece of policy paper.
But throughout this evolution, USAS has retained some key strategic points:
students across the country can share identical demands (getting a code,
cutting a New Era contract, etc); campus victories reinforce each other (where
winning a single code or cutting a single New Era contract is insufficient,
the victories on multiple campuses add up to more than the sum of their
parts); and students have concentrated on leveraging the power of our schools,
where our impact is greatest (using the $2.5 billion collegiate apparel market
as a foothold for improving conditions at factories of all kinds).
In the past two years, victorious (or simply frustrated) USAS affiliates have
increasingly moved from apparel-focused code and WRC campaigns to two other
kinds of campaigns: additional procurement-focused campaigns that exploit
school purchasing or licensing (Mt. Olive, Norpac, fair trade coffee, etc) and
campus worker campaigns (service worker organizing drives and collective
bargaining contract campaigns, grad student unions, living wage campaigns,
etc). [Two quick notes: first, anti-Sodexho campaigns often combined these two
categories successfully; second, yet another category of campaign leverages
the investment and real estate arms of schools to win campaigns, although
these have been less popular recently than the first two types.] It seems
relatively straightforward to retain USASˇ¦s key strategic advantages in
procurement-related campaigns, since they are structurally similar to the
Sweat-Free Campus campaign.
But it is less clear how those advantages can be preserved in the apparently
more provincial second type of campaign that focuses on local workers. The
difficulties seem legion: the situation on each campus is too different
(different unions, no unions, etc); the demands on each campus have to be
different (different living wage levels, different union recognition demands,
etc); the victories do not appear to reinforce each other (College X paying a
living wage doesnˇ¦t make it easier for College Y to do so); organizing close
to home costs the schools a lot more than a WRC membership card or the paper a
code of conduct is printed on.
USAS can overcome these problems.
We propose that USAS begin a national ˇ§living wageˇ¨ campaign with our allies
to coordinate student-supported campus worker struggles across the country
along the lines of our successful Sweat-Free Campus campaign. For the purpose
of this proposal, a ˇ§living wageˇ¨ campaign is defined as _any struggle to
ensure that workers on campus do not receive poverty wages, whatever the
mechanism to remedy the exploitation_ ˇX whether an organizing drive, a
contract campaign, an effort to kick an egregious subcontractor off campus, or
a campaign to win a wage floor that adjusts to the cost of living. There is a
tremendous advantage to classing these all as living wage campaigns: not only
do they share the same goal of ending campus poverty wages, but they also all
share then in the moral force that the ˇ§living wageˇ¨ concept retains. Grouping
these together brings a unity and clarity to our message, to our demand, and
to our group that is not merely semantic. This usage raises a clear banner
under which we can all work, regardless of the specific situation on our
campus (union, non-union, contracted, etc) and ensures that victories increase
national momentum in a way that aids all local struggles.
Specifically, this proposal directs the following:
„X In the fall, USAS staff will work with Regional Organizers, SLAP/USSA
staff, and allied union staff at the AFL-CIO and elsewhere to identify at
least half a dozen campus worker struggles that are likely to crest in the
spring; these campuses should be diverse geographically, diverse in the kind
of schools, and diverse in terms of the type of workers supported and unions
allied with. Staff will then work with these campuses, as well as other
interested campuses, to launch a media campaign (press releases, perhaps press
conferences, etc) around October/November that announces the beginning of a
coordinated national ˇ§living wageˇ¨ campaign with our allies and that begins to
redefine USASˇ¦ reputation to include campus worker struggles. Affiliates and
others will organize simultaneous actions in the spring, including a living
wage day of action in February, on April 4th, and at other times.
„X The Campus/Community Solidarity Committee (CCSC) will work to identify
and support campus living wage/campus worker campaigns, and will hold monthly
conference calls for affiliates working on living wage/campus worker
struggles. CCSC will work with staff to develop relevant materials and
resource guides.
„X Staff and regional organizers will devote significant time and
resources to living wage/campus worker campaigns. In particular, CCSC, RO, and
staff time will be devoted to helping campuses begin campus worker campaigns,
and determine what kind of campaign to run. Time should also be devoted to
relevant allies: for example, they should work with the AFL-CIO and others to
contact Central Labor Councils and/or state Federations, and encourage
affiliates to develop relationships, where possible. Similarly, staff and CCSC
members should meet with interested union internationals about where
priorities overlap and working together is possible, while encouraging
affiliates to meet with interested locals.
These campaigns should not be limited to the service sector (custodial,
dining, security, clerical), but should make some effort to take in all kinds
of workers, including interested building trades locals (painters, laborers,
carpenters, etc); while wages in the building trades are often above municipal
living wage standards, trades routinely face contractors who attempt to
violate wage, hour, and workers compensation laws.
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