Members of the Living Wage Campaign mockingly greeted members of the Board of Visitors outside their meeting at the Harrison Institute Thursday morning, pretending to represent an organization entitled “Students and Corporations United” and congratulating the Board’s “labor streamlining” practices for University employees.
The Living Wage Campaign, which garnered national attention last February when several members began a hunger strike in an effort to encourage the University to raise its minimum wage from $10.65 an hour to $13 an hour, offered Board members flowers, boisterous applause and various certificates or awards in feigned appreciation of the Board’s treatment of University workers.
“[Board members] wield an immense amount of power over the lives of thousands of people here,” said Arts & Sciences Graduate student David Flood, a member of the campaign. “[We want to] draw attention, in a satirical way, to the role that the BOV has in essentially determining people’s livelihoods at the University.”
The campaign, which first formed in 1996, hopes to raise awareness and support among the student body to strengthen its lobbying efforts with the administration. While Flood says he understands not all students want to be involved with rallying, he still thinks they can get behind the cause more tacitly.
“There’s nothing unreasonable or radical about the idea that people should be paid enough to live,” Flood said. “But they’re not, and basically our goal is just to draw some attention to that fact.”
—compiled by Sara Rourke
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