by MARK GABRISH CONLAN
Copyright © 2015 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
Teachers and Students
United
Rev. Cornelius Bowser
and Mark Jones
Rallying the Crowd
Upside-Down Sign
United Domestic
Workers
Clapper and Fist in
the Air
Lyrical Groove
hip-hop band opened the program
In All Languages
Fight for $15 for All
.A.jpg)
Richard Barrera
(center)
Rev. Beth Hansen
(center)
Taking It to the
Streets
Reclaiming SDSU for
Justice
April 15, 2015
was more than just the day federal and state income taxes were due. A
nationwide mobilization bringing together labor unions, faith-based groups,
civil-rights organizations for people of color, and student and teacher groups
staged actions in 230 U.S. cities to highlight the growing inequality of wealth
and income in this country and propose a $15 per hour minimum wage as one part
of a solution. Various events were held throughout San Diego, including an
informal march through North Park at 7:30 a.m., but the big rally and march
were scheduled for 4 p.m. at the vast plaza that serves as the entrance to San
Diego State University (SDSU).
Organizers of
the SDSU event put together an unusual rally program. Instead of inviting
elected officials and prominent community leaders, they used ordinary workers
to tell their tales of how hard it is to live on today’s wages. Richard
Barrera, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Federation,
led off the program, but he was virtually the only traditional “community
leader” on it.
Barrera
explained that the “Fight for 15” movement being pushed at the rally began with
the heroic struggles of workers at fast-food restaurants, many of whom lost
income and put their jobs at risk by picketing their employers during business
hours demanding minimum-wage increases. “These courageous fast-food workers are
now joined by the United Domestic Workers (UDW), United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW), janitors, laborers, construction workers and people all over
the labor movement. Our message — the fight for a living wage and to organize
and join a union — is a struggle the public supports.” Barrera called the
“Fight for 15” movement “the rebirth of the labor movement, the middle class
and democracy.”
“All my life, I
thought if I worked hard I’d get what I worked for,” said Sarah Martin, adjunct
professor of English at San Diego City College. “I went to college, got a
master’s degree and accumulated $60,000 in student loans, but there just aren’t
that many jobs for teachers.” Martin said that 25 percent of adjunct professors
— who not only get paid considerably less per class unit they teach but don’t
have tenure or any other guarantees of job security — “are enrolled in at least
one public-assistance program.”
Another
professor, Alberto Macias, said he has to have three jobs to make ends meet: a
part-time lecturer at SDSU, an adjunct at City College and a staff position at
the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park. He said his pay at SDSU is $63
per hour — but only for 10 hours per month, no matter how much time he actually
puts in at his job. He linked his own struggle to the decline of the percentage
of American workers in unions, which was 20 percent 20 years ago and is now
just 11 percent. “The union jobs have left the country,” he said.
According to
Macias, universities are doing major cost-shifting that’s harming both teachers
and students. “More universities and colleges are taxing students with the bill
for their education,” he explained. “Education should not be for sale. It’s a
fundamental right. Especially in the U.S., with the greatest accumulation of
wealth in the world, education should be free.” Macias said the U.S. could
easily afford to fund a college education for all students who could benefit
from one if it cut back its defense budget and abandoned its imperialist agenda
overseas.
Macias was
followed by Jeanette Corona, an SDSU senior who talked about her own struggles
to survive and stay in school. “We need to raise wages, roll back fees and end
student poverty,” she said. “I’ve struggled with my housing. I’ve had to manage
my bank account very carefully because I don’t know how I’m going to get food
the next day. I’ve been told it’s all my fault, that I should just take out
another student loan. I don’t want another loan; I want everyone who’s been
humiliated and shushed to stand up. Education is a right, not a privilege.”
“I’m 22 years
old, an undocumented immigrant, Chicano and Queer,” said another SDSU student,
Jesus Daniel Mandel Carvajal. “The issue is larger than us. Students are
exploited daily and have to take one, two, even three low-wage jobs to survive.
I don’t just want to survive; I want to thrive.” Carvajal said he spoke for
“folks who don’t have access to health care and have to take pill after pill to
cope with their headaches, heartaches and soulaches; folks who can’t afford
good food and have to resort to 99-cent noodles. We must hold this university
and others like it accountable to providing job protections and living wages.”
The program also
featured people in more traditional “working-class” jobs, including janitors
Ricardo Cortez and Rosa Lopez. “I live paycheck by paycheck, and that’s not
making it for me,” said Cortez, a member of the Service Employees’
International Union (SEIU). “We as union members need to stand up and fight.”
“Everyone who
works hard deserves to make a good wage and be treated with respect,” said
Lopez, who like Cortez is a janitor represented by SEIU. “I work 365 days a
year. I can’t afford to miss a day. I have to decide what bills to pay. I go to
school, work seven days a week and take care of my family. That makes this work
really hard.”
Contrary to the
stereotype many people have that the only workers making minimum wage are young
people just entering the labor force, the rally presented single parents — both
women and men — who are trying to support their families on minimum-wage jobs.
“I have three
children, and the money I make is just not enough,” said hotel worker Joanne
Corona. “It’s a very hard, difficult job. They pay us every two weeks and give
us barely enough to make the rent. We still have other bills, including gas,
food and clothes. Our children ask for recreation that we can’t afford to give
them. I am a single mother because the Border Patrol assassinated my husband.
Sometimes I have to leave my children alone at home because I can’t afford day
care. That’s why I’m in unity with you. We need a dignified salary because it
is a heavy workload.”
“I’m a single
dad with three children,” said Armando Teyes. “I’m a veteran. Many of us have
been deployed and come back unemployed and homeless. We are protecting our
rights in this community. Many veterans may not know it’s important to continue
the fight.”
Among the most
aggressive supporters of “Fight for 15” are the in-home caregivers for people
with disabilities. They are represented by the United Domestic Workers (UDW), a
strong participant in the “Fight for 15” coalition. [Full disclosure: this
author is an in-home caregiver under the public In-Home Supportive Services
(IHSS) program and makes $9.85 per hour taking care of three clients.]
“I’ve been a
proud member of the union since 2012,” said Victoria Lara. “Before that I was a
food worker, so this fight really hits home for me. You work hard and are paid
so little because they can get away with it. I get $9.85 per hour for three
clients, including a quadraplegic. Don’t we all deserve dignity? Yes, we do.
Today I am proud to stand with all workers. We will tell the corporate CEO’s,
lawmakers and university officials we will continue to fight for a union for all workers.”
Doug Moore,
executive director of the San Diego local of the UDW, also spoke. “Home-care
providers make an average of $10 per hour,” he explained. “We’ve been in
negotiations with the County of San Diego for two years for us to get a 25-cent
raise. Rallies are good, but we need to make broad changes that will take
control of this country and take our democracy back.”
Mark Jones,
president of the Black Students’ Coalition at SDSU, made the connection between
Martin Luther King’s well-known commitment to civil rights for
African-Americans and his much less-known work for economic equality and labor
rights. (When King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in April 1968, he was
there to support a strike by municipal garbage workers against the city.) “As
Martin Luther King realized, you cannot have social justice without economic
justice,” Jones said. “Social and economic justice are the same thing to me.”
The faith
community was represented by Reverend Beth Hansen of the Interfaith Committee
for Worker Justice (IFCWJ) and Pastor Cornelius Bowser of Charity Apostolic
Church in Santee. “You are not alone,” said Rev. Hansen. “Faith communities
stand with you. Clergy stand with you. We are fighting together because this is
a struggle for all of us. This is a wave that will not stop because it is a
struggle for justice. The stories we’ve told today are accounts of the battle
for justice. Everyone who works should be able to live with dignity. No one
should be forced to live in their cars.” Rev. Hansen said she’d already
committed civil disobedience last September to awaken the consciences of
corporate officials, and promised she’d do more.
“In 19 years as
a pastor, I’ve seen people doing two or three jobs and not being able to
participate in the community,” said Rev. Bowser. “A low-wage worker is like a
man in water up to his nose. If anything
happens, they will drown. I’m proud to be with all of you to stand and fight
for $15. Low-wage jobs and irregular work schedules hurt our families. Parents
can’t participate in their children’s lives. In my church I have a parent of
two children who works at a fast-food restaurant, and after nine years she still makes barely more than minimum wage. She needs a
roommate to survive.”
After Carvajal’s
presentation — which he billed as a “poem/speech” — the organizers led the
crowd on a march through the SDSU campus and onto the streets. The mood was
determined, and the sight of wave after wave of people — many of them dressed
in purple, blue, green or red shirts with the logos of the organizations they
were in — pouring through SDSU’s hallways and under arches emblazoned with the
names of 1-percenters who’d donated to the university was inspiring. After the
march toured the campus, it hit College Avenue and poured into the streets.
Though attendance at the 4 p.m. start of the rally had been sparse, enough
people joined it in progress that by the time the group was ready to march,
over 2,000 people were on hand to support a $15 per hour minimum wage and basic
justice for working people.
