Hannah Caruso
Interesting article from The Nation on how for-profit colleges mislead students into protecting the college's own bottom-line!
Ian Mikusko
What does it take for a family to get by in your college town? In your hometown? In…Random County X, Alaska?
You can find the answer to all these questions with the Economic Policy Institute’s Basic Family Budget Calculator. The results are really fascinating and might come as a shock. Taking just one example: a single parent supporting three children in Washington DC requires an annual income of $86,612.
Compare this to $12,876—what someone working 1776 hours (the US annual average for 2009) at minimum wage makes in a year—and yeah…. Not good. Not good at all.
Important to note that, unlike the federal poverty line, the EPI Calculator is based on real costs like fair market housing for the metro area, average cost of child-care, average commuter costs, etc.
This is a handy tool, worthy of a bookmark in this blogger’s opinion. Good to keep in mind to use as a point of comparison for when/if you learn how much workers at your campus make.
Photo by Breakmould via Flickr.
Hannah Caruso
That is a key part of the class-action lawsuit against campus food service companies in Alabama. At UA every student must pay a $300 fee each semester for Dining Dollars. And it doesn’t matter whether they live on campus. (Kind of like the University of Louisville).$300. Not an outrageous sum, to the outside observer.
But the students suing the universities estimate that in the last year alone undergrads paid more than $14 million total in Dining Dollars. Some of that money could have helped local merchants survive.
When this program began in 1996, it was viewed by many in the community as a “threat to local business” as stated in an article in the Tuscaloosa News. In fact, the “chamber of commerce and Tuscaloosa City Council came out against Dining Dollars,” fearing that it would draw business away from local restaurants.
As a result UA agreed to open Dining Dollars to three off-campus businesses. However, the restaurants have to give 21% of revenue to the campus food service company. Some restaurants say they can’t afford that percentage. (Here’s the contract between the University and the company).
Does your school’s food service company draw income away from local businesses? How do you think this affects the local economy?
Ian Mikusko
A more substantive Stir It Up-date coming tomorrow! For now, here’s a really interesting article by Michael Pollan in the New York Review of Books.
The article contains a lot of information to chew on for students planning to build a diverse coalition of organizations in the fight to democratize campus food service. Here’s a piece of the article that describes the diverse interests that hold a stake in effecting change in the food system:
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Among the many threads of advocacy that can be lumped together under [the food movement] we can include school lunch reform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against genetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food; efforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” (the principle that nations should be allowed to decide their agricultural policies rather than submit to free trade regimes); farm bill reform; food safety regulation; farmland preservation; student organizing around food issues on campus; efforts to promote urban agriculture and ensure that communities have access to healthy food; initiatives to create gardens and cooking classes in schools; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the various efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing, especially to kids.
Conspicuously absent is any talk of justice for food service workers. But that slight aside, the overall push is in the right direction and the article is really interesting.
Photo by william couch's Flickr Photostream.
Ian Mikusko
As a project of UNITE HERE, one of the main objectives of the Stir It Up campaign is the fight for economic justice in university food service.
So, when the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) issued a finding stating that ‘food preparation and serving’ work is one of the two fastest growing occupations in the country, it piqued our interest. This type of work is typical of university dining operations.
This, of course, is a set up for the bad news:
Food preparation and service is also one of the lowest paying occupations in the country. Its median wage of $8.28 per hour is only slightly below half of the national median wage of $15.95/hour.
The following EPI graph of the fastest growing occupations illustrates this stark difference:
<!--break-->Though sobering, the statistic on food service workers’ wages does not come as much of a surprise. Food service—university dining included—has been a historically low paying industry. That does not mean that it is doomed to continue as such, however.
As we move into the fall months, workers and students will be standing together to address the injustices that they see on their campuses. This blog will provide regular updates as these struggles unfold.
Hannah Caruso
Ian Mikusko
First Compass Group (Chartwells, Bon Appetit). Then Aramark. Now Sodexo.
Read about the agreement at the top of the Student/Farmworker Alliance website. Also check out the CIW, Sodexo press release.
Ian Mikusko
Forgoing the temptation to run a more conventional ‘Best 100’ list, The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released a list of 97 “Great Colleges to Work For.” The results are based on surveys responses from over 43,000 people at 275 institutions.
Judging from the comments section of the list and other reaction across the internet, the list has generated a fair amount of controversy. On such a heated topic, it’s hard to find the same opinion twice. One person’s “special place to work” is another person’s place where “my point of view is heard and widely ignored.” Adding an important angle to the debate is Monica Kortsha, a reporter for The Horn, an independent University of Texas newspaper, who questions the accuracy of the survey results:
It should be noted that the Chronicle's results are hardly representative of the diverse community of UT employees because the survey was only sent to a number of administrators, faculty and professional staff--completely bypassing graduate students, part-time employees and service staff, like custodians and food service workers [emphasis added]. What might those members of the UT community have to say?
Indeed.
Are the opinions of service workers any less relevant than the “administration, faculty, and exempt professional staff” who were surveyed?
Not to mention the fact that service work at universities is becoming increasingly privatized. Meaning more workers on campus are, in fact, not employed by the university. Are those people any less a part than the campus community for the mere fact that they are employed by a private company?
The idea of creating a list of the best universities to work for is a good one. It’s important to track how institutions of higher education treat their staff. But until the list incorporates the opinions of the people who, generally, make the least amount of money, it is hard to take such a list seriously.
Ian Mikusko
One of the issues that regularly raises the ire of university students—whatever their political stripe—is when a company has a monopoly on campus food service operations.
The indignation can be moral: “I shouldn’t have to support a company whose business practices conflict with my values.”Or ideological: “I support the free market economy.”
Or practical: “I want different food options.”
Regardless of the underlying reason, this practice is one that strikes many college students as unfair.
At three universities in Alabama, students are using the legal process to do something about monopolies on college campuses:
Students say in a class action [lawsuit] that the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa has given Aramark Educational Services "unfettered dominion and control over on-campus dining" by awarding it a monopoly on dining services, which "robs the students of the benefits of free choice in the marketplace." Students filed similar class actions against UA Birmingham and Sodexo, and Auburn University and Compass Group USA dba Chartwells.
Interesting that every one of the “Big 3”—Sodexo, Compass and Aramark—are included in the suit.
I’ll be interested to see where this case goes. If successful, this is an interesting model for students taking action to balance power on their campus—which usually tilts in the direction of administrators and companies and away from students.
Photo by David Smith via Flickr
