This semester the University of Maryland at College Park has announced tuition hikes, hiring freezes, wage freezes, and threaten workers with layoffs and benefit cuts. A group of about 40-50 campus workers, graduate students, undergraduate students and union representatives met on campus Thursday night to organize a joint struggle for a better University environment.

Students and Workers United!, Maryland Action Collective!, and University of Maryland Peace forum jointly called the meeting. It started with statements by eight workers about why they joined the workers and what struggles they face. They were diverse in job title, race, gender and age, even including student workers from UMUC and former graduates of the University of Maryland.

Both workers and students agreed that there needed to be more cooperation between campus workers and students in everything from daily interactions to anti-war organizing. Several workers, accepted invitations to accompany the University of Maryland Peace Forum bus to New York on Jan. 15th, while other workers recounted marching with some students at the most recent anti-war demonstration in Washington.

The first planned joint action of Students and Workers United! is a rally on campus at the University of Maryland at College Park at 4:00. At 5:30 a bus will leave for a a rally and lobbying in Annapolis -- Against layoffs, against pay cuts of any kind, against wage freezes, and against Tuition Hikes.

Two students also spoke. One discussed why the anti-war movement and the labor movement have been so closely tied in the last year and some. She recounted the many union statements resolutions against the war (including from the campus workers union AFSCME), the union-busting actions of the Bush administration, and the massive budget cuts that the administration has passed with regard to every part of government except the military.

Before the end of the meeting, marked by labor hymns and a special César Chávez union clap, another student read a statement of Student and Worker Solidarity. The statement, signed by all in attendence, cam be found below, and basically sums up the issue.
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Students and Workers United!

Campus workers recently lost the "guaranteed" periodic Cost-of-Living raise that would have adjusted wages for inflation. Subsequently, campus workers have been fighting for their right to a fair wage. Unfortunately, the University has blocked them at every intersection.

University employees have only had the right to organize and collectively bargain for two years. From the beginning, the administration has stalled negotiations, has not bargained fairly and has sought to undermine the solidarity of workers. Furthermore, by framing the issue as a question between a worker raise and a tuition increase, the University has sought to destroy any solidarity between workers and students and, in effect, pit us against one another.

The problem is not as the University frames it, but rather a question of priorities. While the University starts massive construction projects including a $100 million dollar sports arena, it still does not offer a fair wage or in many cases even a living wage to the workers who make the school run.

The number of people who do not go to college because they cannot pay for it increases every year. Meanwhile, the University continues to increase its tuition prices and is threatening to cut tuition benefits for the workers. This illustrates the priorities of the administration to create an elitist institute of research and revenue production.

While these are the interests of the administration, we recognize that the interests of students and workers are the same. We hope to create a productive working and learning community in which we all learn from each other in order to create a better world.

The Diamondback [the campus newspaper] may claim that "students carry workers on their backs," but we know the opposite is true. This university including all its classes, its events, its students, and its professors depend on campus workers everyday. Henceforth, we will fight until workers are given their due. We, the undersigned, are Students and Workers United! We stand with campus workers struggling for fair wages, a supportive work environment and dignity.