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NEWS & LETTERS, June -July 2007Dr. King and today’s living wage battlesPalo Alto, Cal.-- Stanford University commemorated the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to the campus by screening the speech he made at Stanford in 1967. The speech was recorded on film by Allen Willis, also known as Black/Red columnist John Alan, who later rescued the film from the dumpster when TV station KQED threw it away. Stanford University and East Bay Media Center honored Allen Willis’ contribution with a Lifetime Achievement Award on April 15. Dr. King in 1967 seemed to be addressing today’s reality. He had just come out against the war in Vietnam, and linked the war abroad with the economic deprivations of people at home. What made the event come alive beyond the discussion of Dr. King’s life and times was the intervention by students, teachers and Stanford workers. They all called attention to a protest happening just outside the hall. Several students had set up a ten-tent encampment on campus and staged a hunger strike there, demanding that Stanford’s living wage policy be extended to cover all workers. In 2003, as a result of another student protest, Stanford had agreed to adopt a living wage policy, requiring that contractors who work on campus pay their employees a living wage, at that time $11.15 per hour. That policy, however, excluded so many workers that a protest group, Stanford Labor Action Coalition, consisting of workers and students, decided to take further action. After they had fasted for nine days, the University agreed to changes in the living wage policy so it would now cover more part-time and temporary workers. This victory is a part of the fight for economic justice, with the students and workers still demanding that off-campus facilities, like Stanford’s hospitals, also be covered. --Urszula Wislanka |
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