Arizona State Students Launch New Semester with Action for Campus Workers

by James Parks, Aug 21, 2007

Arizona State University students stand to protest the presence of anti-worker Great Western Erectors on campus.

As universities gear up again for the fall semester, student activists at Arizona State University (ASU) already are serving notice their commitment to justice for workers has not been cooled by a summer vacation.

At the new student convocation last Friday, 50 people stood up just as university President Michael Crow began speaking. Wearing T-shirts saying, “Dr. Crow Stands in the Way of Justice” and “Boycott Great Western,” the protestors demanded the university stop doing business with Great Western Erectors, which is constructing several buildings on campus. The protestors included members of 10 organizations, the campus Social Justice Coalition and striking workers.

For the past two years, ASU students, along with religious and community activists, have been fighting to help Great Western workers improve wages and working conditions. Many of the mainly immigrant workers walked off the job in 2005 saying they are denied water in the 100-plus temperatures of the desert summer and they have to pay for their own safety equipment. They also say they have been verbally abused by supervisors while working at job sites on campus.

The ASU students worked with university administration officials last year to create “Values-Based Principles” for subcontractors. Despite these efforts, Great Western was hired to build projects for the ASU Foundation, which is a separate nonprofit organization that raises funds for the university and whose building houses the president’s office.

Because Crow refuses to meet with the students regarding its concerns over Great Western, the students who protested last week say they feel they have been forced to take direct action. They say they are frustrated with Crow’s failure to respond to them and with the administration for not living up to its agreed-upon principles for treating workers.

 In July 2006, members of Interfaith Worker Justice—an organization that promotes the rights of workers through the ecumenical community—sponsored a “Thirst for Justice” protest at a downtown Phoenix construction site against Great Western over the issue of workers’ not receiving enough water.   

Since 2005, the Iron Workers union has been assisting the Great Western workers in their effort to get a voice on the job. The nearly 200 employees at Great Western install rebars—steel reinforcing rods in concrete structures.

They want their employer, the second-largest rebar installation company west of the Mississippi River, to follow the lead of its top competitor, J.D. Steel, where workers won a watershed victory in 2003. The Iron Workers signed a union contract with J.D. Steel covering 600 workers in 21 states. The agreement provides for improved wages, health insurance, pensions, a grievance procedure and a training program.

The pact also created a unique multistate organization, Iron Workers Local 846, giving the union and the employer the flexibility and mobility to reach out to more workers. As construction companies expand nationally and increasingly do business in many states, unions must change their own structures to better enable workers to have a voice on the job, Iron Workers leaders say. Creating a multistate local is one example of how unions are changing to help workers and employers in their industries build strength.

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