If, like most Northwestern Students, you have not been wondering what the people at the Living Wage Campaign have been up to lately, they want you to know they haven’t gone anywhere. While they have of late been less visable, its leaders could be found last quarter protesting and interrupting President Schapiro at the Political Union’s discussion about the state of liberal arts education, as well as launching an expensive-looking website, presumably with money that could have also been directly donated to the people they are supposed to be helping.

But in case you haven’t gotten your Living Wage fix of late, the Living Wage group will be hosting a conference on the issue this Thursday and Friday, co-sponsored by a litany of Northwestern academic departments that are alleged to be legitimate. The event will be keynoted by Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickeled and Dimed, who will presumably come to explain why $13.23/hour is a “living wage,” and why $13.22/hour is an egregious violation of basic human rights.

There will also be panels of experts that include student leaders of the campaign. These students may or may not explain whether this year, like last, they will spend Accepted Students days enticing prospies to matriculate with talk of how the University commits “wage theft” on a daily basis, and what the self-anointed at the Living Wage Campaign are doing to absolve us all of our sins.

There *is* such thing as a free lunch

But last, no event would be complete without a Living Wage lesson in economics. As if in an effort to parody themselves, the campaign boasted on its flyer that they are serving “Free Lunch” midday on Friday. A word of advice to the good people in attendance: after you grab your “free” lunch head on over to Leverone Auditorium at 12pm. Conveniently, Professor Zelder is teaching Intro to Micro at that time. I’m sure he’d be happy to explain why “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

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