One Year After the Sit In
Much progress, but still no Living Wage
A Community Panel organized by JwJ’s Workers’ Rights Board has issued a report on the progress on workers’ issues at Washington University in the last year. The report, “Making Real the Promise”, notes that although much progress has been made, most sub-contracted service workers still don’t have access to health care or a living wage.
- Download the Full Report (7 MB)
- See an Executive Summary (10 KB)
- Check out the press coverage: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, KWMU, Student Life (Wash U Student Newspaper)
One year ago, we were celebrating the victory of the historic sit-in at Washington University. Jobs with Justice members were involved in so many ways in supporting the sit-in. We attended rallies, met with the students, participated in the 24-hour prayer vigil outside Brookings Hall, dropped off food?.Together, we celebrated our victory last April 22, 2005 when Washington University made concrete commitments to improve wages, benefits and other working conditions for the sub-contracted service workers in its campus community.
We celebrated, but we did not stop organizing. Jobs with Justice and its Workers’ Rights Board – in collaboration with the Washington University Student Worker Alliance - have been monitoring the progress on improving working conditions at Wash U over the last year. In the last 6 weeks the WRB convened a Community Panel to issue a report on the current state of workers’ rights at Washington University.
The Community Panel was organized by the JwJ Workers’ Rights Board and included the following Community Leaders committed to worker justice:
- Rabbi Susan Talve, Convener
- State Senator Joan Bray
- State Representative Maria Chapelle-Nadal
- Honorable William L. Clay, Jr.
- Rabbi Randy Fleisher, Jews United for Justice
- Vincent Flewellen, MSW, Alumni Board of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University
- Jerry Hochsztein, JD, Jews United for Justice
- Rhona Lyons, JD, Jews United for Justice
- Bill Ramsey, Human Rights Action Service
- Professor Mark Rank, PhD, Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at Washington University
- Joan Suarez, Workers’ Rights Board
- Reverend Michael Vosler, Workers’ Rights Board
