Live Updates: Stanford Students Hold Hunger Strike for a Living Wage
Students camping in Stanford's White Plaza demand a living wage for university workers.
News: Stanford students have pledged to fast until the university commits to a living wage without restrictions. Check this space for regular updates on their progress.
April 13, 2007
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Mother Jones loves activism in action, particularly on college campuses. When Stanford students contacted us with information about their campaign to bring a true living wage to their university, we agreed to document their fight.
Living wages for kitchen staff, maintenance workers, groundskeepers, and construction workers is often a contentious issue on college campuses, with students and workers fighting for a livable wage and administrators resisting, then frequently adopting more economically just policies in fits and starts.
That's certainly the case at Stanford. In the winter and spring of 2003, workers and students rallied for a living wage and President John L. Hennessy appeared to cave by agreeing to a living wage with certain restrictions. In time it became clear that those restrictions excluded enough Stanford workers to render the policy meaningless. In May 2003 students fasted for a week until Hennessy agreed to appoint a commission to examine the issue.
In June 2004, the commission recommended striking down five of Hennessy's seven restrictions and said, "If Stanford University operates a "living wage" policy, it should not attach so many conditions to its applicability that it has the effect of excusing many Contracted workers from that policy. [The current policy] risks giving the unfortunate impression that Stanford's employment policies do not really mean what they are proclaimed to be." Hennessy agreed to consider and possibly adopt the commission's recommendations.
Almost three years later, nothing has happened and student activists say they are back at "square one." Thus, another fast. Their demand: "That the living wage be expanded to apply to all campus workers." You can learn more about the group holding the hunger strike, and its demands, at this website.
While the students are occupying White Plaza on Stanford's campus and refusing to imbibe, they will be filing regular dispatches for Mother Jones. Check this space for updates.
April 13, 8:30 AM PST, Hour 15 of the Hunger Strike
We kicked off the fast yesterday with a town hall meeting, with workers, students, and alumni talking about the current labor situation at Stanford, what's happened the past few years, and why direct action is necessary at this point. The room was completely full; we ran out of chairs and people had to stand. Two administrators came (they got chairs) and took notes on everything. At the end of the meeting, we announced that we were occupying space in White Plaza, and most of the people from the meeting came and helped us set up tents. The administrators followed in a golf cart and talked to us about what we were doing, but didn't really try to stop us.
We've been really impressed by the initial response. We've had a number of people who we didn't even know tell us that they want to get involved and help in any way they can. (This includes some additional people who want to fast.)
We took over this platform in a central location so that we'd have a lot of visibility, but we may need to think about moving to another space if we need room for more tents.
April 13, 4:00 PM PST, Hour 23 of the Hunger Strike
An additional student has joined the fast, bringing the total number of students participating to five. He hadn't been active in the group before, but once he heard about what the situation was and what we were doing, he wanted to be involved. Several other students have also approached throughout the day asking to help out in other ways.
Today at noon we had a rally and a march to President Hennessy's office to present our demands. (Ed. Note: See pictures below.) About twenty low-wage workers were able to spend their lunch break at the rally, and there were also a number of students. At the president's office, an administrator (not the president) came out to tell us that Hennessy wasn't in and wouldn't be able to meet with us until Monday at the earliest. Actually, we had seen the president driving to work in his golf cart earlier (he ignored us then too). One of his assistants admitted to us that the staff is under instructions to always tell us that he is out.
It appears that the administration's rhetorical strategy will be to claim that they aren't aware of any workers who make below Stanford's official living wage. In reality, people who have seen the Human Resources department's lists of contracted workers and their wages can confirm that this is a lie. It was especially offensive when the administrator said this to us today, directly to the faces of workers making less than a living wage.
We're entering the 23rd hour of fasting, and so far everybody is doing OK. Some people are feeling really hungry, obviously, but that's not the main difference. We're all feeling a little tired and slow, and some people have been getting headaches. One participant, who started her fast a little earlier and has not eaten in over 40 hours, has been getting hit the worst. Overall, though, we're all feeling really good. I think that a large part of it is that we're optimistic, and that people have been really supportive.
(Ed. Note: There's a petition in support of the hunger strikers and a living wage at Stanford! Read and sign it here.)
April 14, 11:00 AM PST, Hour 42 of the Hunger Strike
It's raining right now, which makes it hard to get people to come out to rallies and less fun to be out in tents. Fortunately, we had read the weather reports and saved today for organizing and preparing for our big rally tomorrow. Tomorrow is Community Day, where Stanford invites people from the surrounding area to come to a little fair on campus. Student groups and departments are invited to set up booths, but low-wage workers and the union are generally excluded, so we'll be having our own CommUNITY Day event emphasizing that the workers are also part of the Stanford community. (Ironically, one of the main features will be a barbecue for all the non-fasting attendees.)
All the fasters were feeling pretty good yesterday, but last night was definitely worse than the night before. We all had some trouble sleeping. Lisa had hunger pangs, Dan and Joseles were dehydrated, and one faster is starting to get sick. For all of us, the feelings of slowness, lightheadedness, and especially tiredness have increased, but we're still competent enough to help out with the organizing and planning. So far we haven't taken any electrolytes, so maybe we'll feel better once we do that. Also, last night we set up a movie projector and some speakers, so once it stops raining we can just rest and watch movies when we're too tired to do anything else.
It's not clear why President Hennessey decided not to meet with us until Monday. By prolonging the fast, he's making it worse for us, but he's also making it worse for the university by increasing negative publicity. One possibility is that he thinks that we won't be able to hold out. Apparently, during the last fast in 2003, he said the same thing about not being able to talk right away, and then changed his mind and negotiated over the weekend when he saw that the fasters weren't backing down.
April 14, 7:00 PM PST, Hour 50 of the Hunger Strike
The administration's strategy is becoming clearer. We just got a call from an administrator saying that they would call us to set up a meeting (Note: not meet, set up a meeting) if we didn't "harass guests" at Community Day, or disrupt the proceedings in any way. We actually weren't planning on doing anything disruptive; we have our own (positive, non-disruptive) event tomorrow, and we were planning on focusing on that. Of course, we suspect that they will accuse us of harassing people no matter what. The funny thing is that at the same time that they're warning us not to disrupt their event, they're trying to shut down ours. At the administration's request, we're having our barbecue at the side of the Oval. This is a space with grills set up, where on any given weekend in the spring you're likely to find a group holding a free barbecue. For our event, however, the administration has decided that we need special permission from the Santa Clara County Department of Health, and has said that we cannot proceed without it. Of course, this is impossible, because the Health Department isn't in the business of giving permits for simple campus barbecues (the forms that the administration say we need to fill out are clearly designed for food carts and stands). We'll see if they try to bust up our event tomorrow. It's pretty ironic that they're responding to a fast by trying to prevent even more people from eating.
Speaking of more people not eating, another person who had not been involved with our group is joining the fast tonight, bringing the number of fasters to six. The fasters are still feeling pretty good, and hunger, while certainly an issue, is still not the main problem. (I'm actually writing these words while sitting next to a plate of cookies that someone brought for the organizers, and I'm not even tempted by them.) The biggest problem today is that it's been cold and windy. Fasting makes it much harder for your body to maintain its temperature, and when you're doing a long term fast, it's important to minimize the number of calories that your body needs to burn to keep warm. One of our team, who has been known to wear t-shirts in New England winters, is currently wearing five layers of clothing, gloves, two hats, and a blanket, and is still shivering. It's supposed to warm up tomorrow. Let's hope it does.
April 15, 2:30 PM PST, Hour 70 of the Hunger Strike
This morning we packed up our tents and left the our space in White Plaza. We did this both to avoid causing a disruption to a student group that had planned to use the space, and more importantly, because we had a better place to be. We currently have our tents set up directly outside Hennessy's office in the Main Quad.
A quick summary of how we got here: Today we had our big barbecue/rally for workers, students, and community members. While people were grilling and eating, two fasters and two organizers went to a speech by Hennessy to hold a banner demanding that he meet with us and to pass out flyers to attendees. As soon as we arrived, an administrator and multiple police officers surrounded us and threatened to arrest us. We hadn't been planning on interrupting the speech, but they were yelling so loud that a lot of people were distracted. Once they calmed down, we stood by the side of the speech and held the banner, and then flyered near the end. At this point, even simple things like holding up a banner have become difficult for the fasters.
Afterwards, we held the rally part of event, including speeches from union leaders, a faster, and the five (!) people who joined the fast today. We had a great turnout and the speeches really fired people up. We then marched past the crowds of people here for Community Day to Hennesy's office and set up our tents while police and administrators ran around trying to figure out what we might be doing. I think that they were scared we were going to occupy the actual office.
Even though the fasters might not be physically strong right now, the support we've received and a growing sense of our own power has given us a lot of emotional strength, and we're prepared to carry on as long as necessary.
Right now, we're still moving stuff into our new camp. More soon.
April 15, 10:20 PM PST, Hour 78 of the Hunger Strike
The university has agreed to negotiate with us! After we had been in our new residence in the Quad (outside the president's office) for a few hours, some administrators came with a lot of police to threaten us with arrest or suspension if we didn't leave. We told them that we wouldn't leave until they stopped stalling and agreed to good-faith negotiations between us and Hennessy at a specific time. The Dean of Students explained to us that that couldn't happen, that the President's schedule was full, and that they were doing "everything humanly possible" to try to set up a call to schedule a meeting as soon as possible. We told her that if that was the case then we would be staying. She left, made phone calls for 15 minutes, then came back and told us we had a meeting with Hennessy at five pm tomorrow (Monday). So we said goodbye to the police (and their cameras) and went back to our old home in White Plaza.
The fasters got pretty tired today running around and dealing with police, but now we've gotten to rest and we're feeling good. It definitely helps that we're making progress with the administration, and also that we're getting so much support. We're now up to 12 fasters, including three workers and two alumni. At this rate, we'll have a hundred fasters by the end of the week, if negotiations go on that long.
Hopefully the university will keep its word and we won't have to force the issue again.
April 16, 8:40 PM PST, Hour 100 of the Hunger Strike
We held two rallies today, the second of which ended with us delivering student representatives to the first negotiations with President Hennessy. It is the 5th day of the fast and we are still holding strong. Most of the fasters who began on Thursday are no longer feeling hunger pains, but are generally slower and more tired than usual.
The meeting with Hennessy went as expected. He didn't commit to changing anything, but he did commit to further constructive dialogue regarding making changes. We will meet again tomorrow.
It was interesting to see how Stanford's institutional leader prioritizes issues and also how he views himself. First of all, after we presented our demands he immediately rejected them and said that implementing them would take months of review and internal discussion. He also said he was unaware that large numbers of workers were excluded by the Living Wage policy. And perhaps the most shocking thing he told the negotiators was, "The University is not a democracy."
Hennessy did, however, acknowledged some problems with the Living Wage policy, and we had a strong back-and-forth about lifting restrictions on a collective bargaining agreement.
Although he said a lot of discouraging things, we feel that we can move forward with our negotiations so long as we continue to put escalated pressure on the University. It is more important than ever to get as many bodies out there at rallies, as many people participating in the solidarity fast, and as much national press as we can get. And perhaps if necessary take-over the main quad again. Some of us sensed that Hennessy was somewhat intimidated by the power we've built. It was obvious he was annoyed and didn't want to be there, but he realized he couldn't ignore us like he had the past few years.
April 17, 8:30 PM PST, Hour 124 of the Hunger Strike
Today we held a one-day solidarity fast and turnout was amazing. Over 170 people fasted for the day to show their support. At the end of the day they came together to break the fast, and seeing everyone gathered together was really an amazing experience and very powerful emotionally for the fasters. This was especially important because the fasters have become much, much weaker physically over the past two days. Anything more than a short walk at this point is exhausting. The amount of weight we've lost is also a bit disturbing. (Some of the original fasters ribs are protruding now.)
Despite this, President Hennessy does not seem to feel any urgency. At our meeting with him today, he said that he thought he'd be too busy to meet with us tomorrow, and probably the next day too, but that he'd try to meet with us on Friday. Visiting weekend for prospective freshmen starts on Thursday, and we plan to be out in force to greet them and show them the truth about Stanford.
Hennessey may be gambling that our physical weakness will cause us to quit if he keeps stalling. Unfortunately for him, every time the administration disrespects us and delays, our determination to see this through gets stronger.
The administration is resorting to petty tricks. For example, we had been promised that we could get a call early this morning to set up the meeting time for today. Instead, we got a call saying that we could get a second call 15 minutes before the meeting would start, whenever that would be. Obviously, they were terrified of the large rally we had outside the last meeting and wanted to keep us from organizing something similar today. Of course, we just told people to be ready and then called them when the time came, and we had another large rally.
Some good did come out of today's meeting. The administration agreed that it would set its living wage in a transparent manner, and we made some progress towards an agreement on lifting the restrictions. I hope that we can finish this before we suffer any permanent physical damage and Stanford has to suffer negative publicity, but if that's what happens, it will absolutely have been worth it to help hundreds of workers and their families lift themselves out of poverty.
April 18, 8:30 PM PST, Hour 148 of the Hunger Strike
We had a long meeting with representatives of the Human Resources department today because President Hennessy refused to meet. Hennessy had told us yesterday that the representatives would have the authority to remove restrictions on the living wage policy, but apparently this was untrue. Though the administrators at the table agreed with us that most of the restrictions should be removed or reduced, they said they could not guarantee policy changes until the next meeting with Hennessy.
Speaking of that next meeting, while the HR meeting was ongoing, other students held a brief occupation of the building that his office is in to demand that he meet with us sooner. (Video and pictures to come. Damn hippies are so disorganized.) We stayed polite and just left a number of creative art messages on the door, but we hopefully got our point across -- we can be far more aggressive and disruptive than we are now, and that we will move in that direction if the administration refuses to show us the same respect that we are showing them.
With the two successes of the HR meeting and the occupation, the mood is very positive at camp. Most of the fasters are feeling very good, although the one faster that I mentioned earlier as getting sick is now getting even sicker, and another faster isn't doing so hot either. (They are choosing to continue the fast.) We're trying to be careful and limit the amount of stuff that fasters have to do. I'll keep updating as long as I can, but I apologize if the posts become less coherent.
[Ed. Note: The fasters have made a series of videos documenting their struggle and have posted them on YouTube. You can find them here.]
April 19, 3:00 PM PST, Hour 166 of the Hunger Strike
A lot has happened today. I mentioned yesterday that one of the fasters, Liz, had been feeling sick. She went in to the campus health center and it turned out that her electrolyte levels were low. She tried to bring them back up throughout the day, but by last night she looked terrible and was dizzy, nauseous, and disoriented, and her body temperature was dropping. She went home to rest, but woke up this morning feeling even worse and had to check in to the health center and go on an IV. When they took her vitals, they found that her electrolytes had dropped even farther. Fortunately, she's starting to feel better now, and hopes to be able to go home by the end of the day. I'll update on the rest of today's events in a few hours.
April 19, 9:00 PM PST, Hour 172 of the Hunger Strike
More bad news on the health front. One faster found out that he has strep throat and has to stop, and another had an abnormal EKG and had to go on an IV. He wants to continue the fast, but we're trying to talk him out of it. It seems that preparing for fasting makes a big difference. The original fasters have been the fasting the longest, but they also had the longest to prepare by adjusting their diet ahead of time, and they seem to be in the best health. So even though health is obviously a major problem at this point, we feel that at least the original fasters can definitely continue the fast for a lot longer.
While the health problems are very upsetting, there have also been a lot of positive developments. The activities fair for the prospective students was right next to our tents, and at least one host dorm assigned all the prospectives staying there to come talk to us about what was going on. Hennessy refused to meet with us today, so we held a rally outside his speech for the admits and their parents. We decided to stick with a positive tone, and as a result the rally was a lot of fun, with impromptu chants and singing.
Today was also exciting because we had a lot of media attention. The San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and several local TV stations all sent people over to interview us and check out the rally. I really want to thank Mother Jones for giving us this space: every reporter I talked to said that they had been following the story here. Hopefully the increased exposure will encourage Hennessy to come to an agreement more quickly. We have been promised a meeting tomorrow (time and place undetermined, of course), so we'll have a better sense after that. There's a growing feeling within the group that if Hennessy continues to play games and delay even now, after fasters have begun suffering serious health consequences, then there is no point in continuing to try to be nice.
April 20, 6:30 PM PST, Hour 194 of the Hunger Strike
We won! The fast is over! President Hennessy didn't tell us when the meeting would be until 15 minutes before, but once it started the administration immediately started making concessions. Most of the restrictions on the living wage have been removed, and the two that remain have been weakened. Everybody is feeling great. Sorry not to write more, but it's time to go celebrate.
[Ed. Note: And eat!]
