The Orbis

Issue date: 12/8/06 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Alex Kruzel

Probably the most amusing part of the whole experience of walking in on the Board of Trust meeting was the applause we received from bewildered board members as a single-file line of professionally dressed students silently entered their meeting. Of all the possible reactions, why clapping? I would have laughed had I not been consumed with adrenaline and nervousness. The only similar sensation I have ever felt was at the start of a cross-country race when the utility of long hours of preparation were called into question as the prospect of actually competing sets in.

Other members of Living Income for Vanderbilt Employees (LIVE) and I decided to interrupt the Nov. 16 Board of Trust meeting during our weekly meeting on Nov. 1. In an intense two-hour session, we seriously considered whether such action was necessary, justifiable and what the implications could be.

Since 2002, LIVE has been lobbying for a living wage at Vanderbilt, where at least 300 full-time employees make less than $10 per hour. Countless hours were spent during the past four years building relationships with workers, holding workshops, writing editorials, organizing students, compiling research, holding rallies and teach-ins, and meeting with administrators. While students began to consider a living wage quite seriously, administrators ignored or minimized the issue, instead sticking to vague talking points and paternalistic pats on the back. LIVE members attended six consecutive Young Alumni Trustee forums, met personally with a variety of administrators (including Chancellor Gee), sent letters and petitions and held a rally themed, "Why Not A Living Wage?".

These efforts yielded no results. For four years, Gee refused even to recognize the term "living wage." For four years, Michael J. Schoenfeld repeated the fallacious assertion that Vanderbilt's benefits package is enough to compensate for its below-market wages. For four years, administrators refused to analyze the cost of implementing a living wage, which would have permitted LIVE to have a substantive conversation with them. For four years, LIVE members patiently used the proper channels to advocate a living wage without the administration taking a single step.
All evidence suggested that patience and orthodox means would continue to yield nothing but empty talk, so conscience and pragmatism dictated that unorthodox means would have to be employed.

Continued...

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