A hunger strike for campus jobs
ON MAY 12, five students (myself included) at Vassar College began a hunger strike in protest of the administration's call to eliminate numerous summer break positions for campus workers.
Although not part of the workers' 10-month contracts, these positions have been relied on for decades as a source of supplementary income for the summer months. Typically, cafeteria workers are assigned jobs doing general upkeep work, such as painting, cleaning and grounds maintenance during June and July. This summer, however, things will be much different, and those who have come to depend on these positions will have to look elsewhere for employment.
But as one worker recently said to me, it is highly unlikely that any employer would be willing to hire them for just two months. And given that they cannot receive unemployment benefits, many fear that they may not be able to afford their basic living expenses this summer, such as providing food for their children or paying rent.
These job cuts, moreover, are part of a larger economic strategy articulated by the financial heads of the college, as a reaction to the current economic crisis. The strategy, essentially, would respond to the minimized operating budget by reducing the "overall number of employees" at Vassar.
Indeed, as President Catharine Bond Hill said to us recently, come fall semester, these summer job cuts "will look like peanuts." Many students, faculty and staff have begun in various capacities to take aim at the proposed economic strategy, and are demanding meaningful alternatives, such as pay cuts from top-earning administrators and faculty, and a reduction in spending on indulgent items and events.
Unfortunately, many members of the Vassar community have found it difficult to have their voices heard. President Hill has been stubborn in her decision to cut workers' jobs and unwilling to consider alternatives. She stated to us on May 8 that she would personally be unwilling to take a pay cut, for instance, because her job is "very stressful" and that if she did receive a pay cut, she would prefer to be a faculty member again. In addition, President Hill stated that she believed that if faculty were to endure a pay cut, they would leave and seek employment elsewhere.
Despite three weeks of sustained action in solidarity with campus workers--including two rallies, one drawing 200 people--and several conversations with President Hill, and given that summer is rapidly approaching and that we have been unable to get President Hill and her administration to seriously consider other possible solutions to the budget crunch, a hunger strike seemed all the more necessary to ensure that no one on our campus or their children would have to go hungry this summer.
Specifically, the hunger strike was initiated to pressure the administration to meet with us explicitly to negotiate a list of demands that we had hand-delivered to President Hill on May 8. Among those very modest demands are summer employment as expected by campus workers in order to at the least meet their basic needs, a new economic strategy (which stipulates that in times of future economic decline, the college will reaffirm its commitment to social justice by implementing a pay cut for top-earners as opposed to cutting jobs from the bottom of the economic ladder) and financial transparency.
Mikey Velarde, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
