The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a research center that both Chancellor Biddy Martin and Gov. Jim Doyle fervently hope will fund the university for the next 20 some years, will open today to harsh cries of protest from those who wish to uphold Madison’s tradition of social justice on campus.
Though the building is funded by $50 million of Wisconsin’s tax money, public money, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, another major contributor, plans to exploit Madison workers by outsourcing food service labor to a private company, Food Fight. These jobs need to reflect our values and be unionized, like all other food service jobs on campus and like all other blue-collar jobs in the WID building.
To these workers, unionization means a fair living wage and benefits. In this scenario, Food Fight would be paying its workers around $8.50 per hour, nearly $3 less than they would receive as public employees, because as such they would be guaranteed representation under the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local 171, the union that represents all 1,600 University of Wisconsin food service employees. Health care that would normally cost less than $50 per month for a unionized worker can cost up to $200 to the average Food Fight employee.
The Student Labor Action Coalition has been calling for Martin to take action on this issue since the beginning of Fall 2010, but their requests have largely gone unanswered despite persistent attempts at communication through a weekly letter delivery to her office. Both SLAC and AFSCME 171 have tried to open all manners of communication with Martin, the WARF, and Food Fight through e-mails, letters and even direct addresses at public forums; the outcries have remained ignored or dismissed.
Despite AFSCME’s willingness to have discussions toward compromise, which could mean a Food Fight-owned restaurant staffed with AFSCME workers who receive fair wages and benefits, these three entities have made it increasingly clear they do not intend to search for remediation or take the community’s deep-rooted concerns into consideration, even turning a blind eye when community members are forced to picket and protest in an attempt to make it known they will not accept these injustices.
Every single worker is important and deserves a fair living wage and the ability to comfortably sustain his or her family. While this is important both in terms of human rights and in terms of a healthy Madison community, this issue affects even more than the handful of workers at the WID.
This neglect of human rights violations could set a precedent for worker exploitation in every future rendition of this public-private amalgamation, a frightening prospect for social justice in light of Martin’s privatizing agenda, the Badger Partnership.
Students, workers and members of the community are assembling today at 1 p.m. at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery to express their outrage over the University’s poorly veiled attempt at union busting. Martin, WARF and even UW cannot be allowed to profit at the expense of Madison and its workers.
Xander Gieryn ([email protected]) is a freshman and a member of the Student Labor Action Coalition.
