Students must join fight to make Notre Dame an ethical employer
Paul Graham
Another Perspective
The rules and regulations set up by the administration can be changed. As members of the Notre Dame family, students, alumni and faculty can impact policies and procedures of the University's administration. If organized, the power and influence that we possess has the potential to be massive. Students at Notre Dame are able to support campus labor by organizing and demanding that the University respect workers' rights and make a statement of neutrality and a statement of voluntary recognition.
Students have always played a vital role in struggles for workers' rights. Labor history is covered with instances where struggles were successful because of the action of youth and students.
In 2001, Harvard students played a crucial role in the "Living Wage" campaign, which had hundreds of Harvard students in support of the campaign and almost 50 students occupying the main building — all for a living wage for workers. Their struggle would not have been successful if were not for the students and their active participation.
Also, student activists and organizers helped pressure New Era Cap to recognize a union contract in Derby, N.Y., which covered 330 workers, and developed the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which currently has a membership of 108 universities and colleges.
Students at Notre Dame worked to convince the University to join the WRC and offer fair trade coffee at every venue on campus.
Students now should pressure the administration to make these statements of neutrality and of voluntary recognition. Workers have told me that most of the staff on this campus are afraid to speak up about their working conditions out of fear of difficulties, reprimands or even pink slips. Workers should be free to organize without threats or fears of actions by their employer that may endanger their pay, their benefits or their job.
A statement of neutrality is a guarantee that the school will not hire union busters, will not try to hinder an election process and will give workers more freedom to make the decision on whether or not they feel the need for a union. This statement is essential to give workers the freedom (a freedom they feel does not exist) to organize, to voice their concern about their rights and to try to change how daily operations are conducted.
If the workers do choose to form a union, then the University should make this process as simple as possible. If Notre Dame made a statement of voluntary recognition, workers would be able to bypass lengthy and timely National Labor Relations Board proceedings. If over 50 percent of the workers in a department on campus signed card checks, then the school would agree to recognize the workers of that department as a union. A statement of voluntary recognition by the University would prove Notre Dame's respect for the rights of workers and their decision to form a union.
There is no question that many of the working conditions on this campus are deplorable. If the University wishes to maintain its status as a moral university, then the administration needs to make a statement of neutrality, allow voluntary recognition, stop viewing labor as a commodity to be controlled and allow the workers to collectively bargain.
As seen in the past, the University will not easily surrender such statements. These statements will only come from intense pressure from the student body, faculty and alumni. Students can create change on the Notre Dame campus, but it will happen only if students work together to put pressure on the Administration to respect workers on this campus.
Students need to show solidarity with the workers on campus. We need to talk to the workers, listen to their stories and hear about their families and their troubles. We need to prove to the employees of this University that students will always stand with them. It is our responsibility as members of this community to work with the staff of the school, discover their needs and help them accomplish what they may not be able to accomplish otherwise. Workers on this campus have tried to organize many times in the past, but each time their jobs were threatened or they were fired. Therefore, students need to help get the workers to the bargaining table and start working for a statement of neutrality and a statement of voluntary recognition.
At universities across the country, it is the students who are leading the way for social justice in anti-sweatshop campaigns, campus worker campaigns, global justice campaigns and others that transform how campuses are organized and operated. Students here have the power to influence the Administration. We need to organize our power and work in coalition with others to demand from the administration a promise that they will recognize workers' rights at this Catholic university.
Paul Graham is a senior sociology major and a Catholic social tradition minor. Contact him at pgraham@nd.edu. His column normally appears every other Wednesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, November 7, 2002
