About SLAC

Origins & Campaigns
SLAC was founded in 1998 during a student labor conference put on by MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) and SEAS (Students for Environmental justice At Stanford). While we have taken on a variety of campaigns and organized with various groups of campus workers, our long-term project is to ensure that Stanford fulfills the ethical responsibilities laid out in the University charter by adopting just, transparent and accountable employment mechanisms and policies. As described in our Mission Statement (below), this campaign is part of a larger committment to effecting broad social change and challenging all forms and structures of injustice and oppression.

<SLAC History>
<SLAC Meetings and Contact Info>

Mission Statement
Stanford Labor Action Coalition

We are a student group that believes in economic justice and the rights of workers to earn a livable wage, have a voice on the job and to organize. We recognize that economic inequality is linked with other forms of social injustice such as racism, xenophobia, language discrimination, sexism and homophobia. We are committed to challenging these systems in the work that we do as well as within our organization. We believe that our university should be a visionary and responsible leader for social change.

We are dedicated to:

• Educating our members and the Stanford community about worker issues, labor history, race/class/immigrant/gender related labor issues, and economic justice;
  
• Developing our capacity to organize for sustainable change by building a strong and effective student organization;
  
• Fostering relationships with and supporting all workers on campus; and
  
• Shaping a stronger social justice movement through coalition building both within the Stanford community and beyond it.

Principles of Unity:

• We aspire to act democratically, while bearing in mind that we are a work-in-progress. We strive to create a just and inclusive space where the contributions and concerns of all members are equally valued.
  
• We work in opposition to a system driven by the exploitive logic that sees human beings as human capital, ecosystems as natural resources, and culture as simply a commodity. Instead, we endeavor to create a world where human dignity is as valued as profit and where means are as important as ends.
  
• We work in solidarity with working people in their struggle to attain basic workers’ rights: including livable wages, a voice on the job, and the right to organize. In order to best accomplish this and in recognition of the interconnections between local and global struggles, we strive to build relationships and work in coalition with other progressive movements and groups struggling for justice within all communities: local, regional, and international.
  
• We believe in the power of direct action organizing and the importance of mobilizing our community. We recognize the privilege and power we have as students and choose to exercise that power in the form of petitioning, teach-ins, call-ins, rallies, civil disobedience, and non-violent action for the purposes of social justice.