How to organise a living wage struggle on campus

How to organise a living wage struggle on campus, May 06

This briefing was written by Jeremy Anderson from Queen Mary’s college, East London. Activists at QM ran a model campaign in 2005-6, which resulted in a victory: a substantial wage rise for low-paid workers on campus.
The aim of this guide is to present some ideas about how to start a campaign to stamp out low pay on campus. It is one aspect of the work needed to guarantee ‘sweat-free campuses’ in the UK.

The Guardian’s report of the struggle at QM is here: QM Campaign victory

Doing a Living Wage campus campaign, a how-to guide.

Researching low pay
Building a campaign team
Analyse the university power structure
Tactics
What’s your message?

Who needs a Living Wage?

There may be a minimum wage these days, but because employers have a hand in setting it, it’s a miserable £5.05 per hour.
On campus that means cleaners, security, catering and other staff are often paid poverty-level wages.
In London, Mayor Ken Livingstone has declared that anything under £7.05 per hour is exploitation. Bad news for the bosses, who might have to start paying something approaching the cost of living. Good news for the masses of low paid workers, but there’s a catch. Unless you work for the Greater London Authority the Living Wage carries no legal weight. Unless, of course, employers agree to it, and that is where you come in…

Researching low pay

You’ll need to get some basic information on the low paid workforce. It’s highly likely that cleaners will be contracted out and on the minimum wage, but you need to know for sure. Catering staff and maintenance workers may be living on bread and water too.

Research checklist
o Does the university use contractors for services such as cleaning and catering? If so, which contractors?
o What are the lowest rates of pay on campus?
o What are the entitlements to sick and holiday pay?
o How many workers are paid below the Living Wage?
o Are the workers full time or part time?
o What other issues do low paid workers have other than pay (health and safety, materials shortages, understaffing, intimidation and harassment)

This last issue is very important. If the contractors have been doing a substandard job then this will be very useful information later in the campaign.

There are two main ways to collect this information, by requesting official university data (this might be easier if the request is made through the union) and by talking to the workers themselves. This may well mean arriving at university at ungodly hours to catch the cleaners before they go home, but it is very important work, not only to find out about what is going on, but to meet the cleaners themselves, tell them about the campaign, and to get them involved.

Building a campaign team

You will need to build a campaign team. A wide array of people on campus might be interested, including students, general staff (particularly cleaners!), academics, and union officials. If you want to be more targeted try approaching the student union, staff unions, academics who work on related subjects such as labour or social movements, political student societies, or simply advertise a meeting and see who turns up. This could involve a screening of a video about the living wage campaign at Harvard or other US Colleges (contact No Sweat) or inviting speakers from campuses with successful Living Wage campaigns. Don’t worry if you don’t have many people to start with, its amazing how much you can get done with a militant few.

Having the staff unions onboard will be a major advantage. The union for non-academic staff in universities is often UNISON. Some cleaners might already be UNISON members. A good relationship with UNISON will make it much easier to get cleaners involved. The UNISON branch may even have some money to contribute. Furthermore, if cleaners join UNISON in numbers the campaign will be much more worthwhile. Low pay is not the only problem that cleaners face, they also suffer from harassment and health and safety concerns. Working with UNISON will help to build up shop floor organisation that can tackle these issues as well.

If you are in London you should contact a community coalition called London Citizens (www.londoncitizens.org.uk). London Citizens organised the first successful Living Wage campaign at Queen Mary, and is active on several campuses throughout the city.

Now What?

Once you have your campaign team together and are armed with a barrage of facts about what a crap employer the university is, you can make your first move. We suggest a letter to the vice-chancellor to outline the case for a Living Wage and to request a meeting to discuss its implementation. Where you send your first letter will depend on your analysis of the university power structure. In a perfect world the university would agree to meet immediately to discuss how these embarrassing labour practices can be reformed, but in our experience this is unlikely to happen straight away.

Analyse the university power structure

Who are the key decision makers in the University? Obviously the vice-chancellor will have a lot of power, but there may be other important decision makers that are more accessible. For instance, who is in charge of overseeing external contractors? If you can provide them with evidence of poor labour, health and safety, or cleaning practices, they might become an ally. Find out who is on the council. Council is the ultimate governing body of the university and has the power to enforce a Living Wage.

Tactics.

The key thing to remember here is that universities are not that different to major corporations. They operate in a highly competitive environment and are constantly trying to increase the prestige of their brand. Universities also invariably like to see themselves as pillars of the local community. Being accused of exploitation doesn’t mesh with this very well.

Have a rally and invite all the local media along
- Rallies are great for building your support base and putting pressure on the university. Local media are also very likely to be interested. Rallies have the added advantage that universities might overreact by sealing off the campus – its happened before and it looks very silly.

Launch a Petition
- Petitions are usually a fairly blunt instrument, but not in this case. Work out who the academic stars in the university and try and get them to sign. ‘Big names’ do carry a bit of influence in universities and even the process of collecting signatures should generate a bit of pressure.

Mobilise the outside community
- There will be a lot of community groups who will have an interest in the Living Wage, such as churches, mosques, anti-poverty groups, etc. Meet with them, tell them about what you are doing, and ask them to write to the vice-chancellor.

Get a meeting with the VC
- Keep grinding away at the vice-chancellor until (s)he agrees to meet with the campaign group. Make sure you role out all your support at the meeting – firstly some cleaners to tell their story, representatives from student unions and societies, staff unions, and where appropriate community leaders from outside the university.

Make a video letter
- Once your lined up all your support, make a video letter that features all of your support base. This worked very well at Queen Mary where it was shown to the university Council. For a copy of the letter, contact London Citizens.

What’s your message?

The university will probably respond with something like ‘paying a Living Wage is morally irresistible but financially disastrous’. The university may ask the campaign how it proposes to fund it. While suggestions such as ‘take it out of the V-C’s expenses budget, or advertising budget’ are tempting, we advise about getting caught up in any of the financial nitty gritty. We are not the accountants, if they are paying their staff scandalously low wages, then it is their job to sort it out. Queen Mary has set a precedent. It is by no means the richest of universities. If they can pay a Living Wage, then it should be within the reach of most other institutions as well. Getting sucked into detailed negotiations over the budget has the added danger of being forced to take responsibility for unpopular resource reallocations.