ND's Jenkins challenged
Group demands living wages for campus workers.

By MARGARET FOSMOE
Tribune Staff Writer 

University of Notre Dame senior Kamaria Porter, lead organizer for the Campus Labor 
Action Project, acknowledges the audience Thursday before she speaks about a new 
campaign to ensure a living wage for campus workers.

Tribune Photo/GREG SWIERCZ


SOUTH BEND -- A group of activists at the University of Notre Dame launched a 
campaign Thursday to improve wages for university workers.

Student organizer Kamaria Porter challenged the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame's 
president, to provide a full report of the wages and benefits for all campus jobs.

During a gathering on the Main Quadrangle that drew about 100 people, the activists 
urged administrators to adopt a "living wage" policy they say would allow a worker to 
provide all necessities for his or her family. Some campus custodians, food-service 
employees and other hourly workers now must work two jobs to make ends meet, the 
activists said.

The new group is called the Campus Labor Action Project. Organizers joined with Right 
to Life, student government and the Progressive Student Alliance in hosting the rally to 
draw attention to the wage issue.

"We're asking for transparency on wages," sophomore Stuart Mora said.

Porter, a senior from Chicago, also asked that Jenkins publicly commit to the principle of 
a living wage, work to establish a living wage policy on campus, call a moratorium on 
outsourcing of campus jobs and meet personally with CLAP this semester.

The organizers emphasized Catholic social teachings that encourage fair and respectful 
treatment of all workers.

"Notre Dame is committed to Catholic social teaching in all regards, including issues 
related to labor justice," university spokesman Dennis Brown said. "We have been in 
communication with members of the Campus Labor Action Project and have scheduled a 
meeting with them for early next month, when we will begin to address these issues 
together."

The current minimum wage at Notre Dame for non-tipped employees is $6.29 per hour, 
he said.

Similar living wage campaigns have occurred at other universities, including Harvard, 
Georgetown and Washington University in St. Louis.

Lupe Gomez, a Notre Dame junior, told the crowd that she came from a family of eight 
children. Her father worked two jobs for more than 30 years to support his family and, as 
result, she hardly saw him while she was growing up. "Many of the employees on 
campus do not earn a living wage, so they have to work two jobs, just like my dad," she 
said.

Notre Dame has to look beyond the success of its students and the quality of its faculty 
research, and take pride in the way it treats its workers, said Thomas Lenz, a 1977 
alumnus. He praised the fair-wage effort and vowed to get other alumni involved.

Stephen Smith, a 2002 Harvard University graduate, described how Harvard students 
occupied the university president's office for 21 days in a successful effort to establish a 
living wage policy on that campus. "A better-paid work force is a more stable and loyal 
work force," he said.

The student activists have a meeting scheduled in mid-October with John Affleck-
Graves, Notre Dame's executive vice president, to discuss the wage issue.

Staff writer Margaret Fosmoe: