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BY RACHEL SCOTT

In print | March 3, 2005

Inspired in part by the success of the Swarthmore Living Wage and Democracy Campaign and the Board of Managers’ approval of President Bloom’s staff compensation proposal in December, students at Bryn Mawr are looking to start a campaign of their own.

Bryn Mawr students Norma Altshuler and Britt Fremstad lead a group whose goal is to determine whether staff rank a living wage among their top priorities and in which areas staff view student involvement as appropriate.

The group is in the process of drafting and distributing a survey to staff in order to get feedback on those issues, according to Altshuler. She said the group was initially focused on the issue of compensation, but after conversations with the Staff Association and individual staff members, they realized the staff’s greatest concerns might not necessarily lie in higher pay.

“There were some other issues certain staff found more pressing than wage levels,” Altshuler said. “There was also a lot of disparity on what issues it was appropriate for students to be involved in, so we decided that gathering more information from staff members would be our crucial first step.” She said other staff concerns included workload, understaffing in certain areas and issues with the grievance process.

The experiences of those involved in Swarthmore’s campaign have been a valuable resource for Altshuler and Fremstad in getting started. “Swarthmore’s campaign has been our major inspiration and its precedent has made members of the Bryn Mawr community more receptive to student involvement,” Altshuler said. “We went to the victory rally in December, and five of us came to Swarthmore and met with the living wage campaign. It was extremely helpful to learn from them about what went wrong and what went right with the product and the process.”

Fremstad agreed that Swarthmore’s success was a source of motivation. “We were impressed by the amount of change they’d been able to make over the course of four years,” she said.

She also mentioned personal reasons for taking up the living wage issue. “I work in the dining halls on campus, so I’m with all the lowest-paid workers several times a week, and I’ve started to build a relationship with them,” she said.

According to Fremstad, the plan for the survey at Bryn Mawr was shaped in part by guidance from Swarthmore’s living wage members. Julia Smith ’06, one of the Swarthmore organizers, said the campaign here used a similar method in its beginning stages to get a sense of staff opinion on the issue.

“There was an extensive survey carried out, mostly of low-wage staff. What came back was that there were two major issues: wages and respect,” Smith said.

The process at Swarthmore was a little different, however, as staff members initiated contact with students about organizing student involvement, rather than the other way around.

“There was a group of students working on issues of global economic justice, and staff members approached members of the campaign and pointed out that there were economic issues here at Swarthmore,” Smith said.

Smith said at first there was a staff-only group, the Compensation Review Steering Committee, which met separately from the students. Later, it became more of a joint effort of students and staff, and eventually students took on much of the lobbying.

In contrast to the initial stages of the campaign at Bryn Mawr, at Swarthmore “it was staff-initiated and, in the beginning stages, staff-run,” Smith said. “Then students took the helm.”

Smith said the slightly different circumstances should not discourage Bryn Mawr students from pushing ahead with their plans. “It doesn’t mean there’s no place for students at Bryn Mawr, it just means they need to keep doing what they’re doing and feel things out,” she said.

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