An Interview with Danielle Christmas,
Student Activist at Washington University-St. Louis

In the Spring of 2005, students at Washington University held a successful sit-in and hunger-strike for labor rights on campus. A leader of the campaign, Danielle Christmas recounts how the campaign began as an investigation of the deportment of Nicaraguan workers, and developed into a comprehensive campaign for labor rights.

At Washington University, the living wage campaign interestingly began with a controversy over deported Nicaraguan workers. What happened to those workers, and how did you become involved in it?

During fall semester of 2003, my junior year at Washington University in St. Louis, I was sitting in my apartment on a Friday evening when I got a frantic phone call. At that point, I had begun organizing for campus workers through a newly formed Social Justice Institute, but our work was mostly on less political issues such as free parking and worker appreciation days. A young woman named Ojiugo Uzoma was calling, and she thought I might be helpful in a situation she had just caught wind of.

Our mutual friend, a Cuban-American named Janine Brito, had a relationship with some Nicaraguan janitors on campus, who were on seasonal work visas and were subcontracted through a company called G&G. They were gathered together that afternoon, October 31st, in the church that most of them attended and told that for reasons beyond explanation their contract was being terminated and they would be flown back to Nicaragua on Monday morning—giving them a weekend to sell their belongings and say goodbye to local friends.

They were told not to talk to students or anyone else about this, forced to sign a contract severing the terms of their old H2B visa arrangements, and told they would receive their severance pay once they were in the air (clearly to keep anyone from fleeing illegally).

At that point, a friend of Janine’s came distressed to her door and asked for her help. Feeling helpless herself, she got the word out, and myself and the other two women began calling everyone we knew who might have a relationship with immigrant or employment lawyers, the ACLU, or anyone else who might be able to help us and the workers understand the legal implications of their predicament.

We called around all weekend, but were only able to get through to a professor of labor law from the Washington University who explained that there was essentially nothing anyone could do during our brief time to stop the company and university from forcing these folks to leave.

How did the controversy over the deported workers lead to the formation of the Student Worker Alliance? Why did the group decide to focus on workers’ rights in general?

We gathered about 20 students together in an apartment on Sunday morning, forming a solidarity group who promised to continue working on this case after our friends left on their flight Monday morning, and myself, Janine, Ojiugo, and two seniors all agreed to accompany the workers to their meeting and departure on Monday morning. We promised the workers, as we all cried together, that we would do all in our power to expose why this had happened and bring them back, and then we said our final goodbyes.

In the following month we formalized our organizing work with regular meetings and named ourselves the Student Worker Alliance. The five of us who had gone to the airport and spent at least 50 hours a week organizing comprised the egalitarian steering committee.

As we all searched for answers to what had happened, we eventually learned that the subcontractor was owned by someone in upper-administration at the university. When the university learned that this had been concealed, and that they would be implicated if this became clear to others, they decided to sever the relationship with the company and consider the displaced workers collateral damage.

We did not limit our information gathering to this case alone, however. We also began reaching out to other campus workers, reasoning that if this group was considered so expendable there had to be more under the surface elsewhere. Eventually, we found consistent complaints of racial discrimination and general maltreatment, and more so a lack of dignity and fair wages. Folks who had been working as janitors or food service employees for five years were making a dollar over minimum wage, perhaps only fifty cents more than their starting wage.

At that point, we realized that the work of dealing with these members of our community was greater than a band aid solution to advocating for the missing Nicaraguan workers. It had to be about the institutional changes implicit to a living wage, and the benefits package and fair treatment that goes along with that. At that point, near the end of November, our mission took on this task.

As one researcher pointed out to me, this is the first college generation in many decades to organize on behalf of workers’ rights. Who founded the Student Worker Alliance with you, and what do you think motivated the group?

The five of us and most students who responded to the initial urgent call over these workers were folks of color. Considering that most community members of color on our campus are Latino and black folks, I think we all identified with the urgency for privileged folks to form community and leverage their influence to help other people of color so that they might help themselves. I know that my initial interest in workers’ rights on campus stemmed from the reality that among my most meaningful and consistent relationships on campus were the kind faces that conscientiously cleaned my living space, beautified our lawns and classrooms, and prepared and served our food.

In general, I think most students expand their worldview in college; I know I learned how to think about a truly encompassing definition of civil rights during my first few years at college and this kindled the desire for me and my peers to do something about any injustice we might be able to effectively influence. After all, we tended to believe even before the Student Worker Alliance that universities are not for learning alone.

We are not a complacent generation, but often feel helpless about the unfair things happening around us. However, students seem to be realizing more and more that injustice lies close to home with campus worker issues, that they have powerful leverage in affecting the plight of this group of community members, and that to do nothing implicates them in the very structure that continues to disenfranchise the folks around them.

Once you began to research the employment practices of Washington University, what did you find out? What findings worried the group most?

The most disturbing findings were like the fact that Bon Appetit food service workers had missed a union vote by one vote due to threats from administration and managers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision against Bon Appetit saying that because of their unlawful union busting they had to post an apology on the wall, which they never did anyway! And the administration supported, and even helped coordinate this.

We also learned that a Sociology student doing research on some of these income issues a few years ago was threatened with suspension if she didn’t sign documents, given to her by the chancellor, saying that she would in no way release her findings.

And finally we learned that, of course, almost every service worker at our school was making poverty wages, much less than the prevailing wage at other schools in our area, despite the fact that we have maybe the 5th largest endowment nationwide and certainly the largest in our area. It was too much. By the time we realized that it would take .01% of our endowment to pay a living wage, we decided that it was time to move forward in a dramatic way.

Per usual, we got sucked into school committees, commissioned to decide whether our arguments were logical and possible. And despite the fact that the admin picked every student, faculty, and administrative member of the committee, they unanimously voted to support a living wage.

The chancellor unilaterally struck this recommendation down by November of 2004 (taking over 6 months to “consider” the committee’s recommendation), and at that point we knew the dialogue had to end and we needed to escalate in a way that made it clear the chancellor could not wait us out by hoping the agitation to end with our graduation.

We settled on a living wage because every issue workers complained about (no healthcare, inability to form a union if so desired, having to work two or three jobs just to survive, lack of dignity, etc) would be covered under our conception of a living wage policy. It wouldn’t leave any loopholes.

In April of 2005, the SWA organized its most aggressive and public action: a sit-in and hunger strike. How did you decide on these actions, and what were the results of them?

We organized a sit-in because we were left with no other options. The administration clearly said they would no longer speak with us and we accepted that what conversations we had previously had were less than productive. We drafted a list of demands that they refused to respond to so finally we decided to use our leverage as students and patrons of the university to make our home an ethical place.

Sit-ins seemed to be the most effective measure used at institutions with our administrative culture, so we began planning right away in February when we made the decision. We agreed to a minimum of 15 people as a bench mark and from there decided to start on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death as a part of the Student Labor Action Project’s Week of Action to honor his legacy of justice for all people.

We only did a hunger strike because even during a week of sitting in the administration refused to have a good faith dialogue about our needs and theirs. We made it clear that we were willing to compromise, but we would not be ignored or waited out. So we escalated to a hunger strike until they began the conversation and after five days this was persuasive enough for talks to finally begin.

The sit-in ended with a commitment of at least a million dollars each year to go towards wages and benefits (with a minimum wage this year of $8.25 for all workers in- and out-sourced) and with the opportunity to go up. We also won membership in the Worker Rights Consortium, and got two committees that will look for more funds for this work and one devoted to making sure subcontractors are following through on their part of the bargain. Finally, we got an agreement on the part of the university to remain neutral in union organizing (which is admittedly fluffy). But we won an ombudsman for any employee to speak to about issues who could facilitate resolution.

We had two lawyers, one in case we were arrested and another to look over documents regarding policy before we signed on, and this was really helpful. We also had a union commit to bonding us out of jail if we were arrested, and were lucky that Jobs with Justice committed to organize almost all of our meals for the duration of the sit-in (obviously minus the hunger strike).

I understand that you are now working for Jobs with Justice. Did the Student Worker Alliance work closely with unions during the campaign? What do you think is the best role for unions in campus campaigns?

I was on the board with Jobs with Justice during my time as a leader of the Student Worker Alliance, and an intern during the semester we sat in, and finally came on full-time once the year was over. Our larger work as a worker and economic justice organization is only pushed forward by the incredible work of people like students fighting for what we chose to fight for. Students are surprising messengers, and they have leverage and privilege, frankly, in the school and community that other fighters for justice just do not have. When they use this power for good (rather than evil!) the movement is amazingly brought to the limelight and allows us to push ahead with our struggle, joining a larger message with the student’s message, making the movement cohesive and more far-reaching than simply campus.

For example, Washington University’s wage increases, because they are the ninth largest employer in our region, will certainly help move up the prevailing wage for the region and make it easier for janitors to bargain throughout St. Louis when contracts come up. Without collaboration, we wouldn’t have played the game in a way to make our fight that far-reaching.

The role of unions and other grassroots organizations, then, is for mentorship, collaboration, and solidarity. Without the turn-out, financial commitments, and mentorship during our first turn at negotiating we would have done a miserable job. Not to underrate us, but that’s a fact. But that is not a sad fact, because all students everywhere working on this movement have some grassroots organizations and unions that would be willing to help. Why? Because it can only help but will never hurt to see the fight through, provided that we as students have done our homework—because no one wants to sign up for a well-meaning lefty campaign with no research that is destined to lose. That’s the reality that we’re working with. In order to be taken seriously, we have to be militant in our research in order to make strides forward.

You've mentioned that the WU campaign began with students of color. This is in contrast to many other campaigns that begin with and are sustained by mostly white students. In your mind, what is the relationship between race and living wage campaigns?

Personally, I got into this work because I looked at all the folks around me who looked like me (out of a campus of about 6000, only 200 of us were black) and realized if I didn’t do something for my people no one else would. I have a deep issue with well-meaning white students helping out the inevitably brown people working on campus who aren’t even organized enough to recruit people of color.

I do believe this is an issue about race. Isn’t it all? Otherwise, would we be willing to see white folks on our campus working three jobs just to keep afloat? I’ve seen a few tokens, but that’s it. I am mixed myself, black and white, but blackness is a consciousness, and I can’t help but believe that unless people of color are at the forefront of organizing for people who look like them, it will turn into a charity campaign (like so many campaigns that I’ve seen).

If you were a black janitor, would you talk to a crunchy white kid with dreads, or a friendly black woman who could relate to you on a dozen different levels? In our own campaign, our relationships with workers succeeded in so many ways because so many of us were able to relate to them on this more “superficial” level, become friends, and then bridge the way for white folks in our group to develop those same relationships. But without a foot to stand on in relating to workers, where are we?

I believe that the university does what the rest of America does. How many cents does a brown person make to every white’s dollar? I don’t know the current research but I know it’s not 1:1. I can’t say that the administration sits upstairs and says, “Why don’t we keep the brown folks in poverty for a little longer.” I think it’s a more implicit way of looking around, not caring because it’s not you, and moving on because it’s cheaper to forget the human to cut the cost. And I believe, like so many of my brothers and sisters, that it would be much harder (even possible) to reason that out if 99% of those folks looked like the administration.

The Washington University campaign has been one of the most successful living wage campaigns to date. What made the campaign successful, and what do you wish you could have done better? Do you have advice for other students involved in labor rights organizing?

Most importantly, we researched other campaigns. We got in touch with SLAP and USAS, our local Jobs with Justice and other community allies, and all of us and these groups came to the table to create a winning strategy. That was critical to everything we did and won.

The most troublesome element of our campaign was group recruitment. We recruited folks as people graduated, but were less conscientious of recruiting people who were diverse, willing to confront race issues, and willing to deal with the gendered division of labor that often happens. We all got there in the end (because after 19 days together, how can you not!) but we should have been better at screening the folks we invited into leadership, although welcoming all who were interested.

Just do your homework, as I said. Drop the unfair criticisms you may have heard about labor unions, as they have a potential to be a great ally. And come to the table knowing that your campaign is a winnable one—because you’ve researched—or else no one else will want to buy in.

Wow, great interview. How can I read them all?

All the interviews from this project have been collected into a report on campus labor rights campaigns. It is available below for easy reading, printing, and sharing.

The Campus Living Wage Project:
Interviews with Student Activists, Organizers, and Researchers