A 19-day student sit-in at Washington University in St. Louis ended April 22 when the university made several concessions, including allocating an extra $500,000 toward wages and benefits of lower-paid service workers for each of the next two years.
Members and supporters of the Student Worker Alliance organized the sit-in, which included a six-day hunger strike, to advocate for a "living wage" for WashU's service workers. The city of St. Louis defines a "living wage" as pay between $10 and $12 an hour, varying according to benefits received.
Meredith Davis, a sophomore and a participant in the sit-in, said WashU officials "shut down all conversations" with the SWA after months of dialogue between students and the university on the issue of a living wage. The university decided to limit discussion of worker wages to private Board of Trustees meetings, Davis said.
She said she decided to participate in the sit-in because of her frustration with the university.
"There has been a lot of student agitation," Davis said.
On April 4, students brought supplies to WashU's admission office, South Brookings Hall, and began to camp out.
"We chose to start on April 4, the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated," said Ojiugo Uzoma, a founding member of SWA and an organizer of the sit-in.
Convinced that they would be arrested the same afternoon, the participating students were all "waiting to see what would happen," Davis said. When university officials ignored the protestors, the sit-in went on to receive much local and regional media coverage and SWA members got phone calls of support from former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and actor Danny Glover.
On April 22, two WashU officials brought an official letter to members of SWA signed by Chancellor Mark Wrighton listing concessions made to SWA and university workers.
Among other addressed concerns, the university will "join the Workers Rights Consortium" in order to "maintain its policy of supporting international and national efforts promoting respect for labor rights around the world," Wrighton said in the letter. The letter also stated that WashU "respects the rights and decisions of employees to choose to be represented by a union and to collectively bargain with their employer."
Davis said that despite the university's statement of support on some key issues, she was "disillusioned" by the policies of the administration.
"(The) chancellor kept coming (through the sit-in) and acting like we weren't even there," she said.
Though not all of SWA's demands were met, Uzoma said that the "university is probably going to be more on-guard now about these types of issues so that this type of thing doesn't happen again."
She said that by the time the university came to its decision, "we had already been there for 19 days, and we were going to make the university address what they said they would."
Since the conclusion of the sit-in, many protesters have gone back to their daily lives, Davis said.
Wrighton said in his letter that WashU will work with students to "resolve issues related to violations of the University's Judicial Code" and "address issues related to missed classes and exams and make-up work" as a result of the sit-in. Despite the potential consequences of the sit-in, Uzoma said that students who participated are still optimistic.
"One thing that I want to draw attention to is that this is just one aspect of a national" movement in favor of a living wage, Uzoma said.
Uzoma said that she expects that the living wage issue "is something we're going to see coming up in the next few years."
