MARYLAND, May 6—Around 40 students and workers with the help of PLP rallied at the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) to demand higher wages for undergraduates who work on campus. UMCP has chosen to pay students the Maryland state minimum wage of $8.25 per hour rather than the $9.55 per hour minimum of the school’s county, Prince George’s. Given the rapid increase of the cost of living, particularly of academic costs such as fees and textbook rentals, student-workers at UMCP have drawn a line in the sand and demanded an end to the exploitation of campus workers.
Despite constant rain, the energy of the multi-racial crowd was exciting. Speeches from student-workers and campus staff were interspersed with spirited chants telling our president of the university, “Loh, get off it, put workers over profit!”
We held high a banner reading, “It’s our future too,” a slogan meant to combat the capitalist-driven education system. We dream of a future of education without profits, tuition, and racist divisions. CHALLENGE was also distributed.
One student talked about how the new manager in one of the campus dining halls implemented new exploitative rules, such that workers could not take bathroom breaks or get a drink of water during “peak” hours of the day. Another student recounted how working three jobs off campus, a necessity because of the poverty wages paid on campus, had severely harmed their mental health and forced them to drop out of classes. Another student spoke of the constant state of being hungry, a natural result of living on only a few dollars per day.
Then in a show of militancy, nearly 20 of us blocked traffic on Campus Drive, the main road linking the campus to surrounding communities, for 8 minutes and 25 seconds. Cops immediately appeared, but we were prepared. Two designated police liaisons talked to the pigs and bought us time as multiple rally marshals ensured no one was harmed by the backed-up traffic. The police had just pulled out plastic handcuffs and were issuing their third warning as we counted down our remaining 10 seconds. We made it off the street before the pigs could lay their hands on anybody, visibly irritating them.
This rally and the confrontation with the kkkops are important for a number of reasons. First, student workers, generally considered outside the larger labor movement by reformist organizations have begun to organize and fight back, and have done so in a militant, disciplined fashion. Second, the solid presence of graduate undergraduate student workers with staff and faculty signifies that the political concept of solidarity is not lost among members of the campus labor movement. Third, through consistent conversation and practice, we have realized that organizing in narrow issue-based campaigns such as that currently being run at UMD can win students and workers in the fight against capitalism.
PLP will continue to work with these students and workers to bring communist politics to the forefront. We hope that through consistent struggle these workers and students will join PLP to rid the world of slave wages, poverty and all the ills of capitalism for good.