Q&A / A Conversation Between A Worker and Student At DePaul University

Submitted by Ashley Weger on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 11:22

[Stir It Up editor’s note: Recently, Ashley Weger, a senior at DePaul University in Chicago, met with Quiendolyn “Q” Wilkens, a DePaul food service worker active with UNITE HERE Local 1. Below, Ashley reflects on her conversation with Q.]

As I wait for Q at the café of my university’s student center, I begin to reflect about what has led to my presence there. I know the intended content of our conversation: we are going to talk labor, organizing. There are deeper inquiries, however, that I feel compelled to ask myself: why this morning, with this person, in this place? Part of what attracted me to DePaul was its Vincentian mission: a commitment to social justice and service, a compulsion to stand on the side of the oppressed, the poor, workers, immigrants, the disenfranchised. It is the pedagogical and historical foundation of our university, for which I hold profound respect. I begin to think of the numerous student communities (intellectual, spiritual, community service, political, etc.) in which I have engaged, in attempts to embody the impulse I have towards imagining that a different world is possible, and working to create the conditions in which it can manifest itself.

And yet, I sit drinking my cup of Earl Grey while that world seems increasingly impossible: the crisis of capitalism ever apparent, no adequate progressive response presents itself from any of the activism and advocacy in which I have immersed myself. Summer in Chicago has been marked by layoffs and a demand of concessions to be made by working people. It is clear that the recession has scared people, who, like Q suggests, are more concerned with securing jobs than with securing rights, benefits and respect. The climate has made many voices timid, but I think of how it has contributed to developing my own. It made undeniable the reality that there is a battle to be fought, and it is one that will require a seemingly overwhelming reconceptualization of the labor needed (intellectual, conversational, organizational and otherwise) to form a working class movement, in the United States and internationally. And as much as I appreciate and admire DePaul’s mission, it has failed to deliver a labor policy for our campus workers that reflects the impulses of social justice. A wage of $9.25 an hour hardly speaks to the tenets of solidarity and dignity Catholic social teaching promotes. As a student, worker, intellectual and organizer, I can not simply stand aside - I must ask myself soberly what can be done amidst an environment where the only steps being taken appear to be backwards. How can we struggle for more?

My conversation with Q contributes to this sentiment. She talks about her job, and those of her co-workers, as means of survival, not self-determined career paths. And yet, she does not devalue her labor: she demands respect, for herself and for her peers. While wages and benefits are clearly insufficient at present, the concept of self-respect resonates as the motivation to secure these material improvements. Q talks about her own sense of empowerment in becoming more actively involved with the union, how standing up changed her perception of economics, politics and possibility. I am inspired at how she epitomizes leadership for the working class: “reach one, teach one” is no empty promise, but rather, the only possible avenue for building power and confidence amongst workers. The question remains: how do we utilize Q’s audacity to mobilize our university community, workers and students, professors and staff? First, we must honestly assess the dismal political state we are organizing within, and work to transform it. How is this done? It is through education, outreach, relationship building, reflection, standing firm. I share Q’s sentiment: we have to let those in power know that “they fucked with the wrong person.” This is not the time to make concessions, but rather, an opportunity to present ourselves as a force to be reckoned with.

Photo of Quiendolyn Wilkens speaking at the UNITE HERE International Convention in June 2009.