I may have been attending a “Real Food Challenge” event, but food itself wasn’t on my mind as I walked into the panel called “At Work in the Kitchen: Dining Workers Share Their Stories” on Saturday afternoon in Kresge Hall. I expected to hear more tales of poor treatment of campus food workers by managers or of the poverty that many of these workers face. These are the injustices the Living Wage Campaign focuses on, as these are the injustices this campaign seeks to end.

But at the panel and the rest of the Real Food Challenge conference, I began to understand that these injustices are part of a larger web of food injustice. The nutritional injustice of limiting fresh produce in campus meals because it is “too expensive,” or of using canned and frozen ingredients because they produce a “consistent product.” The environmental injustice of transporting foodstuffs from thousands of miles away, burning fuel and overlooking the products of local farms and farmers. The trade injustice of underpaying the farm workers in these faraway fields.

The three workers on the panel didn’t focus on what they disliked about their jobs. They focused on what they enjoyed: working with food. We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking of campus workers just as victims, but Tom, Connie and Akhil were very clear: they take pride in their livelihoods and enjoy making food that is delicious, nutritious, creative and attractive. They talked of how over their years working here, they have seen the quality of the food they serve diminish, the amount of fresh vegetables and fruits they serve dwindle, and their freedom to modify and improve recipes all but disappear. It appears that food itself is way down on the list of priorities of Northwestern’s food operations, as is the well-being the people who cook and serve this food. And that is just wrong.

The real food movement is based on the idea that this nation is in desperate need of “real food”: food that “truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth.” Real food is local and fair (which refers to who produces it), ecologically sound and humane (which refers to how it is produced.) According to the real food movement, America’s food system is broken. A food system is a “web of individuals, companies, organizations, companies, and other institutions that work to produce, process and distribute food…from seed to plate and back again.” That burrito you ate for lunch at your favorite dining hall? You probably weren’t thinking about everything it took to get that burrito onto your plate and into your mouth. You probably weren’t thinking about the farmers who grew the wheat for the tortilla, the tomatoes for the salsa, or the beans or rice or lettuce; about the fuel it took to transport these ingredients from wherever they were grown to Evanston; about the treatment of the cows who gave their milk for the cheese or their meat for the steak; or even about the food workers who made you that burrito. And that’s not because you don’t care. It’s because students don’t tend to realize what a massive, convoluted web of effort and energy and money goes into feeding them.

American colleges and universities spend over $4 billion a year on food. The profit that the top three food service corporations (Sodexo, Aramark and Compass Group) collectively make from doing business with colleges and universities? $18 billion. And who are this massive industry’s ultimate consumers? We are. We’re the ones with the meal plans, points and dollars that are paying for this industry, and we have the power to change the way it’s run. We can start by fighting to increase the amount of local, fair, ecologically sound and humane food served on our campuses. It’s time for food that “nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth” – not just Sodexo’s bottom line.

This past Saturday, February 19, FMO’s Political Action Committee, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., African American Freshmen Activities Board, and The Living Wage Campaign cosponsored the annual Legacy of X: Living the Legacy, a Harmonic Convergence of Talent. The event included brief lectures from Northwestern professors Martha Biondi and Ivy Wilson, a performance from African American Theater Ensemble and Soul4Real, and concluded with the showing of Spike Lee’s hit film, “X.”

In keeping with the theme of the event, Professor Biondi spoke about the student movements birthed after the biography of Malcolm X was released. These students sought to refocus their political trajectory along the same ideas in the biography, seeking to reclaim the institutions in their neighborhoods, and reassert their African heritage as a global majority. The result was major changes that included the renaming of Creighton College to Malcolm X College in Chicago, and schools like City University of New York producing as many Black, college graduates as Southern HBCUs.

What can we learn from these students’ continued legacy of X? In living the legacy, we are shown the importance of reclaiming institutions of higher learning in our communities to make sure they are serving our needs as the constituents. After Malcolm X’s death and the release of his biography, the students not only borrowed from his ideas, but also created their own to achieve measurable change. Whether it be restructuring curriculum to not solely include a European centered course collection like the students in the 60s or implementing a living wage at our very own university today, we should show no hesitation in trying to change our school so that it best serves our needs and addresses what we hold most important.

A standoff in Wisconsin between Republican state lawmakers and their Democratic counterparts, as well as public workers and unions, has put the state capitol at center stage of a national struggle for workers’ rights, with peaceful protests not seen since the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Republican leaders are ignoring the interests of 200,000 state employees and their families, and so far are choosing to stand with big business and campaign contributors over working families.

Under the guise of pushing through debatable budget cuts, Governor Scott Walker is also trying to push through legislation that would curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers in violation of their democratic rights and in what many say is an un-American assault on labor unions and workers. He is using the fiscal crisis to advance an extremist agenda against the middle class. At a time when many public employees have taken freezes and furloughs already, Governor Walker proposed to cut the pay and benefits of workers as much as 10 percent.

These are middle class families on the line, and Governor Walker’s blatant disregard for their democratic rights as workers to form a union and collectively bargain is a blatant power play by Republican big money interests and a blow to working families in Wisconsin.

Governor Walker would destroy the voice of educators, nurses, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, bus drivers, and other public employees by destroying their unions. His legislation would placate big business and his campaign contributors, abandoning 200,000 public employees. This does not solve the state’s budget problems, and would instead unfairly penalize the people of Wisconsin.

We stand with the working families in Wisconsin and wish them luck in their struggle.

More information:
NYT: Angry Demonstrations in Wisconsin as Cuts Loom
NYT: Wisconsin Bill in Limbo as G.O.P. Seeks Quorum
TPM: Wisconsin Gov. Walker Ginned Up Budget Shortfall To Undercut Worker Rights

Our campaign is powered by volunteers. If our hopes of building a better Northwestern community are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the support of people like you. Fill out the form below and indicate the areas in which you would like to be involved. One of our organizers will contact you to see how you want to make a difference.

Email
President Schapiro: nu-president@northwestern.edu         (847) 491-7456
Vice President Sunshine: e-sunshine@northwestern.edu    (847) 491-5534

Fax
(847) 467-3104

President Schapiro and Vice President Sunshine,

I am writing in support of the Living Wage Campaign at Northwestern University. At one of the premier institutions of higher learning, it deeply concerns me that many workers on campus are earning poverty wages.

Workers who keep Northwestern operating on a day-to-day basis–enabling faculty to teach, students to learn, and researchers to innovate–must be paid a living wage.  Workers should not have to choose between putting food on their table and paying their rent. An honest day’s work deserves an honest day’s pay, not a poverty wage.

I am proud of Northwestern’s many accomplishments–it is truly a wonderful place to live and learn. But we must treat with respect those who keep this place running so well, those whose work is often invisible. I hope you will take every possible measure to work with the Living Wage Campaign and ensure workers on this campus are not living in poverty. I urge you to prioritize this issue and act immediately.

Sincerely,

____________

–Northwestern could not function without the hard work of the workers who feed, serve, and clean up after students, faculty, staff and administrators. Their invaluable work strengthens our community by providing us with comfort, cleanliness, and security. Workers should be afforded the dignity that such vital work deserves, including, at the most fundamental level, compensation that is both commensurate with their importance and sufficient to provide for the basic necessities of life.

–We must foster a culture that places our people first. Therefore, all members of our community be shown dignity, compassion, and respect, and that all aspects of University life and policy reflect that notion.

– The Living Wage Campaign began at Northwestern in the fall of 2009. After hearing that several Northwestern workers were living out of their cars and in homeless shelters, a group of students decided to investigate how low wages impacted workers on campus. The students, members of the Northwestern Community Development Corps, found that Northwestern workers were unable to make ends meet and live at a reasonable standard of living. Since then, the Living Wage Campaign has led an assault on the Administration’s apathy towards workers receiving poverty wages.

–The minimum wage was established in the United States in the 1930s under the belief that an honest day’s work deserves an honest day’s pay. A person working a full-time job should be able to make ends meet, and used to be able to. Particularly since the 1970s, the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, and it relies on a poverty standard that is grossly outdated. As a result, workers are scrambling to live with two and three jobs—leaving no time to raise a family or participate in civic duties. There are people on this campus who work two full-time jobs—16 hours/day or more—and still cannot make ends meet, let alone spend time with their children or take college classes to get ahead. After paying for rent, food, public transportation, and healthcare, there is no money left over to save for the future, even with two full-time jobs. When one is struggling to live day-to-day, there is no way out, no way to get ahead, and no way to improve one’s standing in society.

–A “living wage” is a principle, not a set wage. At other institutions that have implemented a living wage policy, such as Georgetown University, the living wage standard is adjusted yearly to reflect changes in the cost of living in the surrounding area. At Georgetown, the “Advisory Committee on Business Practices,” composed of staff, students, faculty members and administrators, ensures that the living wage for Georgetown University employees enables them to meet basic needs in the Washington, D.C. area.

TransAfrica and its partners interviewed Sodexo employees in five countries– the United States, the Dominican Republic, Guinea, Morocco and Colombia. One of the company’s cafeteria workers at Tulane University in New Orleans, for instance, complained of still making $7.42 an hour after 40 years on the job. A chief complaint across the globe was a hostile climate toward joining or forming unions, with employees allegedly being threatened or fired.

The TransAfrica Forum report points to widespread problems in the company, citing worker complaints of low or withheld wages and a hostile environment to unionizing. Our fight for the rights of workers on this campus is part of a global effort to force companies like Sodexo to recognize their responsibility for all of the people they employ.

Stories such as these are not unheard of on the Northwestern campus, either, as members of the Living Wage Campaign have encountered many stories of labor abuse by Sodexo. We hope to use this blog and the new website to connect you to the stories of the workers on this campus, and why our help and support is crucial.