By: Caroline Murray

ADP

Springfield, Mass.

In the last year, the Anti Displacement Project’s (ADP) Worker Organizing Committee (WOC) secured agreements from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office to investigate illegal labor practices at mega-corporation Labor Ready and won new policies at three local Labor Ready offices, shut down a local business operated solely with day laborers, and $1 million set aside in the state budget for community based job training for contingent workers.

Now the WOC has taken their fight to the ivory towers of prestigious universities – starting with Mount Holyoke College. The committee discovered that the college and its’ subcontractors were using day laborers on campus construction jobs. Upon learning that day laborers were forced to rip down and dispose of moldy sheetrock with no ventilation or safety equipment – the committee formed a coalition with Mount Holyoke’s Student Coalition for Action, a union representing the housekeepers on campus, and the local carpenters union.

“Mount Holyoke College claims to promote social justice in its mission statement,” said Hannah Hafter, a member of the Student Coalition for Action. “But the reality is that there’s a whole tier of low-wage people working on campus who are being abused on a daily basis. We as students demand Mount Holyok put our money where their mouth is by promoting social justice right here on campus by passing a fair labor code of conduct.”

The coalition held actions at the job site, met with Joanne Creighton, Mount Holyoke’s President, won the public support of the faculty senate and prestigious alumni, as well as noted academic Noam Chomsky and activist author Barbara Ehrenreich, and reported the illegal activity to the attorney general’s office. But Mount Holyoke officials argued that the temporary agencies are responsible for the workers.

ADP and its coalition partners turned up the heat by going after the college’s Board of Trustees – a group of 30 people including CEO’s of multinational corporations, famous academics, and internationally renowned researchers.

In February, the coalition held a rally with 250 people demanding the trustees pass the Fair Labor Code of Conduct (see sidebar) by May 2004 and that a committee of the trustees be created to implement the code. The trustees refused to make a commitment during the negotiation meeting. Therefore, the following night, over 50 coalition members met to plan the next steps in the campaign.

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