The living wage campaign appears stalled. And while I am disinclined to their cause, I cannot help but share a tactic that worked for living wage campaigns at other colleges in the last five years. At Georgetown, Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Vermont, students went on hunger strikes for up to ten days to protest workers’ wages, sending several sickly students to the hospital, but all winning concessions from their respective administrations.
Students at other schools have also made such daring attempts to protest something “evil”–or as the real world calls it, “rational”–that school administrators did/condoned/heard happened. In 2006 at Purdue, students went on a 17-day hunger strike to protest (drumroll, please) how official Boilermaker apparel was manufactured by foreign workers whose employers wouldn’t pay them a living wage or let them unionize. In spite of not achieving any concessions, the students put an end to their strike because they showed “signs of malnutrition and starvation.”
While the NU living wage supporters have been ubiquitous since the winter, using student media, debates, and protests to disseminate their agenda, one wonders if they will take their campaign to the aforementioned level. I’m not trying to instigate anything, but these sorts of things tend to escalate to emotional grudge matches anyway. Once said protesters realize they can’t use words or ideas to persuade others, they resort to melodrama. It’s like the spoiled kid in the store whose parent won’t get them the toy they want: the kid starts kicking and screaming until the parent succumbs to public embarrassment and gets them the toy so people stop staring.
Administrations at Georgetown, Stanford, Harvard, et al, were clearly so embarrassed by their hysterically starving students that they caved. While administrators are obliged to make the school run efficiently, they are as much PR people as anything. They clearly realize that a living wage for all school and Sodexo employees yields any number of bad consequences for the school and employees themselves. But if the whole ordeal causes enough embarrassment and bad press, the cost of not conceding may actually outweigh the cost of implementing the living wage.
After 10 days kicking and screaming, even Harvard kids get hungry. (Courtesy of the Boston Globe)
But notice in this game where the outcome will depend on the financial cost of the program, the cost of embarrassment to the university, and the personal cost of “escalation” to student protestors, the actual outcomes for those who need the service jobs most does not come into the calculus.
I met and debated living wage leader Matt Fischler at the Political Union, and he was a very nice and articulate fellow. But if he gets his way, and all the good things he says will happen do not, he pays no price. If the living wage is accepted and costs are embedded in fewer student services, fewer workers hired, et cetera–because no one is going to accept tuition or board hikes of $1,000–no one will petition, protest, or go on hunger strikes for reversal. Nor will anyone shed a tear if it goes through and the part-time, young, or unskilled worker who would otherwise get an $8/hour job here, can’t find work because the more skilled, experienced worker that gets $14/hour on the competitive market and works longer hours is hired instead.
Ultimately, the variable deciding whether the living wage will be adopted is how badly the protesters want it. The silent majority of students will stay silent, the administration will weigh the costs and benefits to the university, and the merits of the idea really won’t matter. I think the only way the living wage will be implemented at this point is if the protesters resort to a hunger strike or something equally hysterical. The probability of such measures being taken is probably low, and it would still be possible that the administration wouldn’t give in. Still, it is the most likely way for Fischler & co. to win their battle.
The saddest part to me, is that the terrible unintended consequences of the living wage will be irrelevant to the discussion–in the same way it is irrelevant to the larger minimum wage debate and other debates about “social welfare” policies. When the living wage supporters can no longer persuade on the practical merits, they resort to cries about morality and what type of “community” we are, as if what matters is the intention of the policy or how much they care. No matter how long the living wage supporters protest, starve, or try to cause a scene, it will not make the cost to Northwestern disappear, and it will not eliminate the displacement of those who need the jobs in question most.
Bonus reading: If you don’t accept my or Cody’s skepticism of the living wage, consider that of famous economists like President Schapiro as well as Harvard economist Greg Mankiw.
The living wage campaign seems to be resurfacing with another event soon. Pay attention to see what comes of it!
I’ve been reading the Chronicle’s coverage of the living wage campaign, and it consistently disappoints to raise valid objections. To begin with, you claim that the living wage campaign primarily seeks to assuage a sense of guilt. It’s true – we all share a certain amount of shame when the people making our sandwiches, cleaning our bathrooms, and guarding our dorms can’t even afford to support their own families. But how much of the student sentiment is a misplaced sense of ‘white guilt’, and how much of it is simply an affirmation of what is being violated on our campus: hard-working people deserve to make a living. Northwestern students do have unequal privilege, and that’s precisely why we can and should influence our community to empower those being treated unfairly.
Ad for your worries about reversing bad policies, that’s why committees are set up to oversee implementation and issue reports directly to the administration. There are processes in place that facilitate change for exactly this reason. It’s worked at other schools and it can work at NU.
I am glad that you have been reading our coverage–albeit I cannot tell you have read very closely. I also understand how students may be taken aback by the positions a couple of us have taken: why would any student publicly voice opposition to such a noble progressive campaign?!
Still I think your comment completely misses the point I was making. First of all, i never used the word “guilt” in my piece, and i certainly(!) never used the term “white guilt” nor did I ever intend to imply the latter. But guilt aside, I understand how people can be concerned with the situation of certain people and I never took issue. But just because your intentions are good, doesnt mean your policy will have the effect you intend.
By and large thats the point I am trying to make: this will both hurt students who will bear the burden of the cost as well as unskilled, part time workers who need the jobs most going forward. Your aversion to those points I was making help demonstrate my point: the politics of this issue only keep reverting to how much people “care” about the issue rather than the true consequences of the policy. In every way, that is a bad political culture.
Yeah don’t you get it Chronicle, if we believe we can, we can! The points against the living wage only make sense if you believe in economics. What’s next, are you going to ask us to believe in gravity or evolution? No thanks, I’ll take my intellect elsewhere.
NU Student says: “A[n]d for your worries about reversing bad policies, that’s why committees are set up to oversee implementation and issue reports directly to the administration.”
Whether there are “committees” in place to implement policies, does not mean those policies will work–As if a “committee” of bureaucrats could overcome stark economic reality. Just because a committee is in place for something does not mean it is a wise policy, nor does it mean it could ever work, which the living wage certainly will not…
the chronicle is quite an interesting place to say the least. Didn’t really read the articles till someone suggested me to read cody’s article. and then i decided to see what else you’re staff has written.
With that I think you all raise good points, despite the demeaning diction and pretentious attitudes. But I think the campaign also has fair points. I doubt that they’ll get to 13.23 (thats pretty ambitious to say the least). But the workers do deserve a higher floor.
Anyways, this article exemplifies the questions raised by NUstudent. I think that commentators word choice was faulty, but nonetheless much of what is underscored holds true. But I’d push that commentator to think in a different way. Why are you thinking abut “white guilt” for the people trying to help the workers. what should be questioned rather, if you’re going to make a socio-economic claim against the writers of the Chron, should instead initiate questions of subjectivity and identity. White guilt isn’t an identity, its an idea concentrated around sad feelings and emotional acquiescence towards the workers. That’s why these authors (i.e. Ryan Fazio & Cody Kittle)can shit on your response so easily. I mean I agree that I’m not overly impressed by any of these arguments, although they are well articulated and slightly (*slightly) original in approach. But the arguments made are not merely embedded in some sort of argument on economics v. morality.
Arguments made, like the ones exuded here, represent the ownership of ideals and a political personage adopted through social control and power. But they can deflect your simpleton arguments because they manage to separate themselves from the argument (at least on surface). The fact of the matter is that our identities are shaped by position, a consolidated consciousness of some sort, and blah blah blah.
But most kids at NU all come the same place that Ryan Fazio and Cody Kittle come from, which detaches the NU LWC campaigners from identifying with workers and becoming bonded together in a certain cause. Thus, these emotional arguments can be shitted on because they’re just attempts to draw oneself towards something in a very service based mentality… typical.
Now, if you want to engage in the campaign, know that its not about “helping someone” or even whats “deserving”, its about consolidating activity and group identity to organize around cause. On the flip side, if you want to give push back to the campaign, know that its articles like these that show how invested this conservatism or “realism” (as if that exists) is in personal subjective and misconstrued understandings of the world. But lucky for ryan/cody, this doesn’t matter because they can create a facade of economics.
@NUstudent why aren’t you thinking about what it is the composes all of our lives. yes, as its been highlighted here, LWC is about basic needs. But those needs are not arbitrary, they are the workers. We realize with this conservatism the idea of receiving what is deserved of labor (*John Locke, Adam Smith* – capitalism). But its as is if identity on the conservative side has nothing to do with the money they make, and on the side of these guilty white kids the money is only about deserving of simply money. shit its neither. Its about their life actions, consequences, perspectives, and all of that. Give push back to what kittle/fazio represent, not only politically, but what it means for their identity (control, power, realism). I’m not saying either of these cats are bad guys. Everyone seeks these things from the bottom of the chain to the top. But they aren’t questioned. Only the beautiful people that are fighting something are questioned. the top doesn’t get questioned because they don’t have to be. But luckily we have politics to misconstrue it all because its only about back an forth and politicing, and not about what this means as a person.
But thanks for the articles cody/ryan, they are intriguing to say the least.
Spent too much time on this bullshit haha
Someone did a lot of LSD last night.
Cody, doesnt saying the commentators are on drugs dis-incent commenting? Is that not, like the living wage, bad economics?
hahahahah yo, ryan is hilarious. i appreciate this. Lol I think LSD is almost as trippy as coming to terms with identity and socio-economic mechanisms at play. I wonder though, do either of you know where this “economic realism” understanding comes from? Where and what these structural and scientific methods are tied to? I doubt it.
I think i would rather blow copious amounts of weed and know my history rather than truly falling into this hegemonic discourse that you prescribe to.
But wait, I thought you were a philosophy major Cody? Or was that just like you’re commentary on LWC – presumptuous, pretentious, surface, basic. No no no, that’s just a description of your life.
but for real though, i really did laugh at Ryan’s joke.
The hegemonic discourse we prescribe to! I love it. I only wish cowardice didn’t motivate anonymity so, a comedian of this caliber could be a great contributor to the Methodist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
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“I only wish cowardice didn’t motivate anonymity so, a comedian of this caliber could be a great contributor to the Methodist.”
^^^ lol i bet you’re consistently one of the first anonymous people to talk about incidents like blackface, “terrorism”, immigration, idolatry, racial profiling etc. on the daily or nbn or whatever. but wait are you actually now you’re slightly irritated? Is that why you want to know who’s commenting? So you feel some sense of satisfaction? A sense of satisfaction similar to that which you get from starting a one sided, crappy site like this. It must feel sooo good editing this publication where you can have control of what comes out, and who reads it. I mean its almost like writing anonymously yourself isn’t it? -> No one reads the shit except your other writers.
Lol I’d probably stop commenting on here but I almost feel bad for you about the embarrassingly low amount of readers you get.
haha man isnt it all about control cody. I’m sure you’d like to believe you’re starting some beautiful work of art here on a liberal campus, but its not doing anything, and it wont. what it boils down to is an attempt to legitimize a perspective you believe is omnipotent.
look, i’m not saying the left is any different, if you read my comment closely (which i’m ure you didnt even come close to understanding). but do what you got to do though. all i got to say is read your history.
The Chronicle was started 20 years ago. I always attach my name to everything I write, even if that means dealing with ‘intellectuals’ like yourself.
Please refrain from such petty commenting. The comment boards are for stimulating discussion, not degenerating it. If you want to make ad hominem attacks, by all means do so, but attach your name to it.