Northwestern PROTEST: 320 Rally For Living Wages (WATCH)

More than 320 students, faculty and community members gathered Wednesday afternoon to demonstrate for sub-contract workers' rights at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

According to the Daily Northwestern, the university pays nearly all of its sub-contract workers in food and janitorial services between $9 and $11 an hour. The living wage for Cook County, in which Northwestern sits, is $13.23.

North By Northwestern has more on the lead-up to the rally:

The Northwestern Living Wage Campaign began organizing during Fall quarter. Although the campaign has met with President [Morton] Schapiro and other administrators, no progress has been made yet to make any permanent changes in the hourly wage.

Progress Illinois reports that most of Northwestern's sub-contract workers are employed by food-service giant Sodexo.

The university has bristled at raising workers' wages, saying the cost would be put on the backs of students due to the school's dwindling endowment.

More PHOTOS from the rally via NU Intel.

WATCH:

Comments

[T D Goggin]

12:07 PM on 02/28/2010

This kind of thing is SOP for universities. Look at ITARP here in Ill, you have recently graduated students working as field techs for the University of Illinois making garbage money with no benefits. It stinks but there are always young people who are willing to do it.

[47th]

11:40 AM on 02/28/2010

If you raised these workers pay from eleven dollars an hour to thirteen dollars, I don't think it would bankrupt NU. Give them the Godd@mn raise!

[Aldyth]

02:03 PM on 02/26/2010

You can't have it both ways.

I'm sure Northwestern contracted out the food service to save money - those employees aren't on the Northwestern pay scale and don't get benefits from the University.

Tuition alone is $35,000 for a year at Northwestern. Room and board runs somewhere around $11,000. If you want the food service workers to get a raise, plan on your room and board to go up accordingly.

No wonder people graduate from school with mountains of debt. If they attend Northwestern, they're going to have debt or rich parents.

[crookedcountyillinois]

01:03 PM on 02/26/2010

Do they teach Economics at Northwestern University?

'Cause if I didn't think I was being paid enough money, I'd probably quit and go to work somewhere else. Better yet, I'd probably want to specialize in a line of work that makes me more valuable.

[Clarabell]

06:44 PM on 02/26/2010

are there tons of jobs to pick from?

[skeptical1]

10:50 AM on 02/26/2010

I call it Dracula U. as they have been sucking the life out of Evanston residents for years. The NU administration is without principles of any kind so it is no surprise that they are screwing subconted employees. I'm sure that the Kellog School of Business has been advocating this for years and is in the background encouraging this exploitation.
Fortunately, that they are no longer affiliated with the Untied Methodist Church as they severed their relationship with God years ago and are, in fact if not in law, a for profit operation.

[DanBest]

10:14 AM on 02/26/2010

If these students had put "tea party" on one of their signs they could have gotten 200 members of the press to show up. But in our time only white middle aged cry babies get all the attention.

[crookedcountyillinois]

01:01 PM on 02/26/2010

Wow. That's a really presumptuous comment, with alot of generalizations and stereotypes.

[Clarabell]

06:43 PM on 02/26/2010

but true

[oldgeek1]

06:33 AM on 02/26/2010

The argument that a working wage cannot be paid is absurd, What's is next, using undocumented aliens because they are cheaper?

I would look at canceling the contract and make the function that of the University.

[Trance2010]

08:58 PM on 02/25/2010

Well, if these students are so concerned, then why don't they voluntarily pitch in?

[Justin Lehmann]

09:23 PM on 02/25/2010

this is the dumbest, most counter-productive argument that is constantly put forth in this issue. please, stop it.

[Trance2010]

09:37 PM on 02/25/2010

Ok, let's make a deal.... the food service employees get a raise, but the salaries for professors teaching social studies (probably the ones demonstrating) get a cut. You know, it's about "spreading the wealth".

[Ben Cohn]

06:20 PM on 02/25/2010

I know some college students who would love to take those jobs for $11 an hour.

[gifu]

07:07 PM on 02/25/2010

This topic is over your head, hardguy.

[Trance2010]

09:37 PM on 02/25/2010

Not the ones demonstrating... they are too good for those jobs.

[patstory]

05:18 PM on 02/25/2010

This is the first I have seen of this story, but as an NU alum (of the graduate school) I'm very concerned. Who could deny that these workers deserve a living wage? I'm hoping that it does not turn out that NU, which I admire so much, and which has a new president about whom much was promised, is a crummy employer.

[Jonah Newman]

03:52 PM on 02/25/2010

Northwestern has a $6 billion endowment, which is dwindling only in the sense that it was at a record high of $8 billion a couple years ago. For the administration to say that they can't afford a living wage without raising tuition is absurd.

[LegalCodex]

09:34 PM on 02/25/2010

Actually, it isn't. You aren't allowed to, in most cases, touch the principal of an endowment for *anything* besides what the donor said you could use it for; you can only use the accrued interest and capital gains from investing it. So assuming they are even earning 7% annually(which is a lot higher than they actually are earning), they only have access to $420 million annually which isn't that much when you consider the costs of running an educational institution like NU.