< < <
Date > > >
|
< < <
Thread > > >
Activism Surges at Campuses Nationwide, and Labor Is at Issue
by christopher chase-dunn
30 March 1999 13:38 UTC
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------70F74F1BE9DAE898975A88EA
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html
--------------70F74F1BE9DAE898975A88EA
l/032999campus-activism.html"
<html>
<head>
<title>Activism Surges at Campuses Nationwide, and Labor Is at Issue</title>
<meta name="slug" content="BC-CAMPUS-ACTIVISM-835&ADD-NYT">
<meta name="date" content="19990328">
<meta name="length" content="1262">
<meta name="byline" content="By STEVEN GREENHOUSE">
<meta name="headline" content="Student Activism, Aimed at Labor, Rebounds on Campuses">
</head>
<NYT_HEADER version="1.0" type="main">
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" vlink=#444464 link=#000066 background=http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/back.c.gif>
<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr><td align=left width=600 valign=top>
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/pixel.gif" border=0 WIDTH=600 HEIGHT=1>
<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<td align=left valign=top width=60><br></td>
<td align=left valign=top width=480>
<NYT_BANNER version="1.0" type="main">
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/1bannational.gif" border="0" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="40" alt="banner">
</NYT_BANNER>
<br clear=all>
<NYT_TOOLBARMAP version="1.0" type="main">
<map name="maintoolbar2">
<area shape="rect" coords="0,0,75,16" href="/yr/mo/day/"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click to go to the Home Page';return true">
<area shape="rect" coords="76,0,154,16" href="/info/contents/siteindex.html"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click to see site contents';return true">
<area shape="rect" coords="155,0,233,16" href="/search/daily/"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click to search the current site';return true">
<area shape="rect" coords="234,0,312,16" href="/comment/"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click for discussion in the Forums';return true">
<area shape="rect" coords="313,0,391,16" href="/archives/"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click to search the archives';return true">
<area shape="rect" coords="392,0,468,16" href="/marketplace/"
onMouseOver="window.status='Click to visit the Marketplace';return true">
</map>
</NYT_TOOLBARMAP>
<NYT_TOOLBAR version="1.0" type="main">
<a href="/images/maintoolbar2.map">
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/maintoolbar2.gif" border="0" alt="toolbar" ismap usemap=#maintoolbar2 width="468" height="16"></a>
</NYT_TOOLBAR>
<br><NYT_AD version="1.0" location="top">
<A HREF="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Top/micron02/mcoa-head.gif/63687269736364" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Top/micron02/mcoa-head.gif/63687269736364" border=0 WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60 ALT="Free training at MicronU" ></A>
</NYT_AD>
</td></table>
</NYT_HEADER>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE>
<NYT_DATE version="1.0" type=" ">
<!--ELEMENT DATE-->
<H5>March 29, 1999</H5><br>
</NYT_DATE>
<NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">
<!--ELEMENT HEADLINE-->
<H2>Activism Surges at Campuses Nationwide, and Labor Is at Issue</H2>
</NYT_HEADLINE>
<NYT_LINKS_ONSITE version="1.0" type="main">
<hr size=1>
<a href="/library/national/032999campus-activism.1.jpg.html"><img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.1.gif" hspace=4 border=1 width=75 height=75 align="right"></a>
<b>Forum</b>
<li><a href="http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?13@@.efd54c9">Join a Discussion on Unions and the Labor Movement</a>
<HR SIZE=1>
</NYT_LINKS_ONSITE>
<NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">
<!--ELEMENT BYLINE-->
<h5>By STEVEN GREENHOUSE</h5>
</NYT_BYLINE>
<p>
<p> <img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/i.gif" align=left alt=I>n the biggest surge in campus activism in nearly two decades,
student protests have burst onto the scene with rallies, teach-ins
and sit-ins protesting sweatshops and other labor issues.
<p> Students at Duke, Georgetown, Yale and 20 other institutions
have focused on the sweat shirts and caps emblazoned with college
names that are sold in every university shop, demanding that the
companies that license college names not use overseas sweatshops.
<p> Two weeks ago, University of Michigan students took over the
office of the president to make such demands. The week before, 350
Harvard students held a rally to make similar demands, while also
calling for raises for many of Harvard's janitors and dining hall
workers.
<p> The protests are the biggest wave of campus activism since the
anti-apartheid movement in the early 1980s, when students called on
colleges to sell off stock in companies doing business in South
Africa.
<p> The surge stems in part from unions' efforts to attract students
to labor's cause and to train them to be activists. Over the past
three years, unions recruited hundreds of students for summer
internships and, upon returning to campus, many of these students
were galvanized to continue their battle to help workers in the
United States and abroad.
<p> The snowballing protests have included sit-ins at Duke,
Georgetown and the University of Wisconsin and demonstrations at
Brown, Cornell and Princeton. Last month, 40 Yale students staged a
"knit-in" to highlight sweatshop abuses, while students at Holy
Cross and the University of California at Berkeley staged mock
fashion shows in which undergraduates walking the runway described
the dismal conditions in which many garments were made.
<p> While today's protests bring back memories of the raucous '60s
and anti-war demonstrations, the current activism is different. It
is less vociferous, it has focused on labor issues -- there have
also been rallies to defend affirmative action and promote gay
rights -- and it often has the sympathy of administrators.
<p> The demands are also more modest than, say, the overthrow of
capitalism. They include independent monitoring of factories that
make college-name apparel, and a living wage for their workers.
<p> "We're not asking for a revolution," said Tico Almeida, a Duke
senior who led a 31-hour sit-in in the office of Duke's president.
"We're just asking for improvement of working conditions. It
doesn't seem like a lot to ask for."
<p> So far the protests have not involved violence. And in a far cry
from decades past, university presidents have not demanded the
arrest or ouster of students who occupied their offices. Many
officials have even praised the protesters.
<p> "They are terrific students," Lee Bollinger, president of the
University of Michigan, said of the 30 students who occupied his
office and the 200 others who rallied outside. "They're just the
kind of students you want on your campus. They were interested in a
serious problem, they were knowledgeable about the problem, and
they really wanted to do something about it."
<p> In addition to recognizing that arrests can increase tensions,
many college officials marched themselves when they were
undergraduates.
<p> "Back in the '60s, I was a student holding a sign," said Allan
Ryan, a lawyer in Harvard's general counsel's office who has been
the university's chief negotiator with anti-sweatshop students.
"Now I look out the window and say, 'Students are protesting.
Let's see what's on their minds.' Now we look at student protests
as being a normal part of the educational process."
<p> With encouragement from the apparel workers' union, Unite,
students have seized on the sweatshop issue as a clear-cut subject
that hits close to home and that they can make a difference on.
With $2.5 billion in college-name merchandise sold nationwide each
year, students are confident they can use their moral stature and
their universities' financial muscle to bring about changes in
manufacturing, even overseas.
<p> "This was an issue which really moved a lot of people because,
while the workers are making our clothes thousands of miles away,
in other ways we're close to it -- we're wearing these clothes every
day," said David Tannenbaum, a Princeton junior who helped
organize a rally that drew 250 students.
<p> Not everyone applauds the protests. Laura Vanderkim, a Princeton
sophomore, said, "Who is a well-to-do Princeton student to say
what a living wage is in Bangladesh or China? These workers may
make above average wages for the area. And arbitrarily raising
wages could cause layoffs."
<p> Evidenced by protests at Harvard, Fairfield and Johns Hopkins,
another issue catching fire is wages for the lowest-paid campus
workers, typically janitors and food workers. At the University of
Virginia, students have joined with clergy and civil rights groups
to argue that amid campus privilege, it is unfair that school
employees earn $6.50 an hour and need two jobs to get by.
<p>
<p>
<p> Students with different backgrounds have joined the protests for
different reasons. Xochitl Marquez, a University of California at
Los Angeles junior, became involved because a Mexican relative had
deformed a hand working in sweatshops. At Notre Dame, many
protesters were inspired by Roman Catholic teachings that all
workers should be treated with respect.
<p> Some protesters are "red-diaper grandchildren" or the children
of '60s protesters. And many students began organizing protests
after participating in Union Summer, a program in which hundreds of
students work as union interns, helping to organize low-paid
workers.
<p> "One of the great untold stories in the '90s is that Union
Summer has created from almost nothing activism on campus to a
point where labor issues are among the leading issues among
students today," said Greg Smith, a Columbia graduate student in
sociology.
<p> Duke President Nannerl Keohane said the protests grew out of a
quiet type of student activism: community service in which students
tutored children or worked at soup kitchens.
<p> "This generation is one where there's a very strong sense of
personal responsibility to make a difference for immediate, real
people you can see and touch," Ms. Keohane said, adding, "My own
hunch, as a political theorist, is this sweatshop movement is a
direct outgrowth of this practical mindset."
<p> Pressured by students, many schools have agreed to require
monitors and the disclosure of the names and locations of
factories, a step that would make monitoring easier but is opposed
by many companies because they do not want competitors to know
about their factories.
<p> Two weeks ago, the University of Michigan agreed to a
far-reaching code of conduct for the companies that produce the
university-name apparel that called for monitoring and disclosure
and said workers at these companies' factories should receive a
living wage. But, to the students' chagrin, the university did not
commit to a living wage standard because it had not been defined.
<p> Students hailed the university's commitments as a victory.
<p> "This code of conduct is as strong as it is for one reason:
student activism," said Peter Romer-Friedman, a leader of the
sit-in.
<p>
<NYT_FOOTER version="1.0">
</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<br>
<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<td align=left valign=top width=60><br></td>
<td align=center valign=top width=468>
<NYT_AD version="1.0" location="bottom">
<A HREF="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Bottom/micron01/MCOb3TAL.gif/63687269736364" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Bottom/micron01/MCOb3TAL.gif/63687269736364" border=0 WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60 ALT="Free training at MicronU." ></A>
</NYT_AD>
<hr size=1>
<P>
<font size=-1>
<NYT_TOOLBAR version="1.0" type="main">
<A HREF="/"><B>Home</B></A> |
<A HREF="/info/contents/siteindex.html"><B>Site Index</B></A> |
<A HREF="/search/daily/"><B>Site Search</B></A> |
<A HREF="/comment/"><B>Forums</B></A> |
<A HREF="/archives/"><B>Archives</B></A> |
<A HREF="/marketplace/"><B>Marketplace</B></A>
<P>
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/late/">Quick News</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/front/">Page One Plus</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/world/">International</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/national/">National/N.Y.</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/business/">Business</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/tech/">Technology</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/science/">Science</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/sports/">Sports</A> |
<A HREF="/weather/">Weather</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/editorial/">Editorial</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/oped/">Op-Ed</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/artleisure/">Arts</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/auto/">Automobiles</A> |
<A HREF="/books/yr/mo/day/home/">Books</A> |
<A HREF="/diversions/">Diversions</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/jobmarket/">Job Market</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/realestate/">Real Estate</A> |
<A HREF="/yr/mo/day/travel/">Travel</A>
<P>
<A HREF="/subscribe/help/">Help/Feedback</A> |
<A HREF="/classified/">Classifieds</A> |
<A HREF="/info/contents/services.html">Services</A> |
<A HREF="http://www.nytoday.com">New York Today</A>
</NYT_TOOLBAR>
<NYT_COPYRIGHT version="1.0" type="main">
<P>
<A HREF="/subscribe/help/copyright.html"><B>Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company</B></A>
<P>
</NYT_COPYRIGHT>
</font>
</td></table>
</td>
<td align=left width=14 valign=top>
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/pixel.gif" border=0 WIDTH=14 HEIGHT=1></td>
<td align=center width=140 valign=top>
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/pixel.gif" border=0 WIDTH=140 HEIGHT=2>
<A HREF="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Right3/default/empty.gif/63687269736364" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://images2.nytimes.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_lx.ads/www.nytimes.com/library/national/032999campus-activism.html/0/Right3/default/empty.gif/63687269736364" border=0 WIDTH=2 HEIGHT=2 ALT="" BORDER=0></A>
</td></tr></table>
</NYT_FOOTER>
</body>
</html>
--------------70F74F1BE9DAE898975A88EA--
< < <
Date > > >
|
< < <
Thread > > >
|
Home