Georgetown students who had launched a hunger strike to pressure the university to adopt a living wage for all employees ended the strike earlier today, declaring the campaign a victory. The university agreed to a nearly $2 per hour pay increase and other benefits for the lowest paid workers, which includes janitors and other staff. According to an email distributed by the D.C. AFL-CIO council, which had provided the students important support, Georgetown will increase their minimum hourly wage to $13 beginning this July. In other gains,
Georgetown also promised not only to provide full-time jobs whenever possible, but to seek commitments from its contract employers to do the same. In other key non-economic wins, all Georgetown workers will now have access to grievance procedures and contract workers will have the same access to Georgetown community resources as Georgetown direct employees, including library privileges, English as a Second Language courses, Georgetown University Transportation Shuttles, and general financial planning information.
The university posted a summary of the agreement here, and the activist’s website is currently broken, but the AP has sent out a short story earlier today about the victory announcing the end of the strike. The coalition had recieved support from over 50 Georgetown faculty including a majority of the history department and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. NBC 4 has a video and quotes a university spokesperson: “What we’ve shown in the proposal adopted yesterday is that we’re committed to making compensation increases for our employees, we’ve committed on-going efforts to address issues that we still need further analysis and discussion about, but what’s most important is that everyone wants to make a significant different in the lives of the workers at Georgetown.” The Post described the state of the campaign in an article printed today. Also, Flickr user Kim Wolf has posted some photos of the structure where the hunger strikers have spent the past 9 days.
(The photo is by Chris Garlock, via dclabor.org.)
