Police State? Or Catholic University?

by Tula Connell, Feb 27, 2006

Georgetown University students have been assisting low-wage campus workers in their fight for a living wage. The janitors, with the support of students on the Georgetown Solidarity Committee, are asking Georgetown to stop blocking their effort to join a union through the majority sign-up process—the most democratic process for winning union representation—and to finally pay the $13 per hour compensation the university promised them last March after Georgetown students staged an eight-day hunger strike in support of the workers’ effort to win a living wage.

Now, the Metropolitan Washington (D.C.) Council reports that as the one-year anniversary of the hunger strike nears (March 14), 20 members of Congress are urging Georgetown’s President John DeGioia to use his influence to ensure that Georgetown contractors recognize the janitor’s union.

Earlier this month, janitors working for P&R Enterprises, the firm Georgetown contracts to clean campus buildings, succeeded in delivering a petition to DeGioia, asking him to let them form a union and pay them the living wage Georgetown promised last March.

But the workers delivered the petition only after gaining some press after students say some 30 campus police blocked the handful of workers and students who tried to speak at a meeting of the university Advisory Committee on Business Practices (ACBP). The workers wanted to voice their dissatisfaction with the committee’s inaction and present their demands: the freedom to organize a union and be paid a living wage.

According to an agreement the university made with students and workers last year, workers have two seats on the committee—but Georgetown students say workers have not been allowed on the committee, which makes decisions directly affecting them.

Members of Congress signing the Feb. 17 letter to DeGioia include District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich and George Miller (D-Calif.).

Students will hold a rally Feb. 28 at 12:45 p.m., to support Georgetown workers.

It’s a sad fact that many U.S. employers resort to intimidation, harassment and, yes, even violence against workers who seek to form a union.

But an institution founded by Jesuits, a Catholic order founded on principles of social justice?

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)