Pitt Living Wage Campaign Ambushes Chancellor, Issues Newsletter

March 19, 2002

Pitt Living Wage Campaign Ambushes Chancellor, Issues Newsletter

     Activists from the University of Pittsburgh Living Wage Campaign had a
surprise for Chancellor Mark Nordenberg at the spring plenary session of the
Faculty Senate on Monday, March 18, 2002.

     The Faculty Senate had chosen Dr. David Noble of York University as the
keynote speaker for the session. Noble is a noted scholar of the history of
technology and its effects on workers, and is most recently the author of
Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education, just out from
Monthly Review Press. The title of Noble's talk was "The Corporatization of
Higher Education," so the Chancellor was no doubt ready for at least some
critical commentary from the noted progressive intellectual.

     However, Nordenberg probably wasn't ready for just how committed Noble
was to the cause of progressive change, including at universities. Before
the meeting student representatives of the Living Wage Campaign had
approached Noble with a request, and he was going to accommodate them. As
soon as he stepped to the podium, Noble announced: "Before I begin I'd like
a representative of the University of Pittsburgh Living Wage Campaign to
speak."  He then sat down and relinquished the stage to Neil Bhaerman, a
senior political science major at Pitt.

     In his address to the crowd of several hundred, including many faculty
and top-flight administrators, Bhaerman began by quoting Nordenberg's
statement that a university ought to be "an institution with a heart" -- and
then pointed out that if the Chancellor wanted to put those words into
practice, he should begin by instituting a Living Wage policy at the
university.  (A study from Pitt's own Center for Social and Urban Research
was used to design the City of Pittsburgh's Living Wage ordinance, which
requires that companies doing business with the city pay their workers at
least $9.12 per hour with health benefits or $10.62 without, adjusted
annually for inflation. The campus campaign is demanding that the University
of Pittsburgh follow suit and pay its own workers a Living Wage.) Bhaerman
then produced a petition with 1,600 signatures, which Nordenberg announced
he would be happy to review. When Bhaerman asked whether Nordenberg would
meet with students about the issue, however, the Chancellor was
non-committal.

     When Noble returned to the podium, he "politely suggested" to
Nordenberg that the Chancellor skip one of the board meetings of Mellon
Financial and meet with students instead!

     Noble then delivered a fine talk outlining the alarming trend toward
corporatization in the universities, particularly the cross-fertilization
and interlocking directorates between university administrators and the
corporate world.

     The University of Pittsburgh Living Wage Campaign is now apprised of
Chancellor Nordenberg's indifference toward the concerns of low-wage workers
and the students who stand in solidarity with them. Campaign activists are
in this for the long haul and will not give up their agitation until the
Chancellor relents.  In the short term the group is building for a "Justice
for Pitt Workers" rally on April 4 as part of the National Student-Labor Day
of Action.  Students in Solidarity -- the group that initiated the campaign
-- will join Pitt's Black Action Society in co-hosting a viewing of the
monumental documentary "At the River I Stand" as a lead-up to the April 4
rally.

     The campaign publishes a newsletter, the latest issue of which is just
out March 19 and focuses on an incident in February where the university
cracked down on student free-speech rights in an attempt to muzzle criticism
of its labor practices.  The latest issue is at:

http://www.pitt.edu/~leftists/20020319newsletter.pdf

Those interested in other materials from the campaign -- many of which are
available in an easily-printable format -- can visit the campaign website
at:

http://www.pitt.edu/~leftists/livingwage.html

John Lacny 


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