No More Waiting: Holding the University to its Word 
by Stanford Labor Action Coalition
Published in Stanford Daily, January 30, 2007

The release of the December 2006 "Progress Report" by Human Resources (HR) marks the conclusion of a process that began nearly four years ago with the implementation of the Living Wage Policy for Subcontracted Workers in April 2003 and the formation of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Workplace Policies (PAC) in May of that year. After the fast that forced the creation of the PAC, we waited for half a year for the PAC to convene, another half a year before they released their report, another half a year for the president to respond, and now nearly two years later we finally see the fall-out from the struggle of those students and workers. On the issue of the living wage, the University has managed to maintain the empty policy while claiming publicly to have "accepted most of the recommendations of the PAC." But now the period of good-faith waiting is now over, and the time has come once again to make demands. Every member of the Stanford Community should stand up to demand a real living wage policy – which is, very simply, to hold the University to its word. 

If President Hennessy left the living wage for dead in his noncommittal 2005 response, and Human Resources (HR) killed it with their recent "update," Director of HR Diane Peck attempted on Monday to bury it in deceptions. Unrepentant in her reliance on misleading rhetoric, Peck defended HR's response, claiming in Monday's article( "Students Occupy President Hennessy's Office") that the high number of yearly applicants for jobs here reflects Stanford's status as a great employer. Let's not forget that in this curiously utilized quote she is referring to Stanford's directly hired, permanent workforce — who receive a real living wage and the same benefits as faculty. The living wage policy in question, on the other hand, concerns workers who are not hired by Stanford, but who are contracted to do work for Stanford through other employers, deeming the number of applications to Stanford and all the combined enthusiasm of all the directly-hired workers fully irrelevant. We're talking about different groups of people, and Peck's has nothing to do with the discussion of the living wage for subcontracted workers. 

To be honest, we are baffled. Because Peck, of all people, should know the workforce in question. The PAC, which she co-chaired, couldn't definitively find any single contracted worker who was covered by the living wage policy, and for all their research, discovered that Stanford knows next to nothing about the contracted workforce. It's as though Stanford wants to pretend these workers don't even exist, much less deserve a living wage. Let's just continue to pat ourselves on the back and pretend that everything, including the palm trees (which by the way costs more than a workers yearly wage), reflect how great things really are. 

Are the workers who clean our academic facilities, for instance, who are unionized under SEIU and subcontracted through ABM, and thus disqualified from the living wage policy, really that invisible? This is why we need a living wage policy: because the University, like so many corporations, distances itself from responsibility for these subcontracted workers who do some of the most vital work to sustain the campus with wages and benefits far below those given to the workers Diane Peck boasts of. 

So let's take a look at one the key issue that HR addressed, the living wage policy for subcontracted workers:

On the issue of the living wage, HR was asked to consider eliminating 5 of the 7 restrictions that keep it from applying to any workers -- The PAC said that three of these (limiting the size and scope of contracts to which the living wage applies) should be eliminated outright, a fourth (limiting the living wage to non-union workers) if it was found to be legal to do so, and a fifth (restricting the applicability to tenant businesses on Stanford land) only after an investigation of the costs and benefits. Despite the PAC's recommendations and careful research, HR refused to eliminate any of the first three on the basis of an unspecified (and apparently uncalculated) increase in costs that would result -- a factor which was obviously already taken into account, and with more diverse input, by the PAC when they made their recommendations; HR failed to eliminate the fourth restriction without even addressing the question of its legality, with which they were charged (they just said that, based on their own opinion, it would be "inappropriate"); and they failed to even address the fifth restriction at all. 

Now that the fallout from the fast and the PAC report is concluded and revealed, we can forget about HR. They just did what they were supposed to: maintained the status quo whereby no subcontracted workers get a living wage. Attention needs to be turned back to President Hennessy, to make real commitments and real change, not just vague -- or else downright deceptive -- agreements whose effect gets lost in bureaucracy. That old process is done, the time for waiting is over, and it's now time for a renewed hope and renewed struggle. This time, students and workers should satisfy themselves with nothing less than substantial, comprehensive, and transparent labor policy reform, that won't get killed by bureaucracy and then buried by the administration's rhetoric.