I remember when I used to live in the dorms. I spoke politely to the custodial workers as they did their daily jobs of cleaning up after us. Some spoke back cheerfully, while others rolled their eyes and kept on sweeping.
The same thing went for workers in the cafeteria and in the Tiger Lair. We see the same people everyday, and you can recognize each and every one of their faces if you ever happen to see them outside their job. Although in truth I cannot remember names that well, I never forget a face.
These men and women, some old enough to be my parents and a few my grandparents’ age, are the ones that feed and clean after thousands of students and faculty on a daily basis. They are a small army in plain sight but seem invisible to so many.
The reason why I mentioned all this is because of the newly raised issue of living wages for facility workers. In the past I often wondered why some of the workers looked as if they were in a perpetual funk. But after the living wages petition was brought to my attention, and I recognized the lack of opportunity given these workers, I don’t think I would be the most cheerful person every day either. Especially if the job I worked at for 15 years was paying at rates that are not substantial enough to take care of myself, let alone a family.
It is about time people stopped all the bickering about what’s not going right for themselves -we’re all guilty of that from time to time – and start worrying about others. It is sad that these facility workers work full-time jobs and have little to show for it at the end of the day. No health benefits and a wage that is definitely not substantial enough to keep them above the poverty line.
There are many ideas floating around as good solutions to this problem. One that I found interesting is that custodial workers’ children be able to receive a free education at the University as compensation for their parents’ low wages.
Sounds like a good idea at first, but there’s only one problem. Statistics show that children raised in poverty-stricken environments are less likely to even graduate high school. Children raised in low-income families are less likely to receive the best education. And we all know education is not free at any level.
How can we expect children in this situation to perform at the scholastic level required to get into a university? Of course it is the responsibility of the students to make sure they are taking the necessary steps in order to get to that next level, but let’s be honest, have you seen the public schools in Baton Rouge lately? I have.
And many of the students are not even expected to go to college. As Living Wages Project founder Samori Camara said, these men and women are forced to work two jobs, which leaves no time at home to nurture their growing children.
“First of all LSU went through Chartwells so they wouldn’t have to pay the workers state wages. At the time, LSU gave the workers a choice to either take the new job with the lower wages with Chartwells or be fired. For new employees, Chartwells started them off at $5.15. We have to educate the public about what is going on. I feel that LSU is a welfare institute because of the wage that LSU is paying the workers under the minimum wage – it forces these employees to be on welfare. If LSU paid them to a living wage, they wouldn’t have to get on welfare, therefore saving taxpayers money,” said Camara.
But I guess this is not our problem. After all, the United States has earned a reputation for being the most affluent industrial nation in the world that does not take care of the lower class. For the poor the simple response seems to be either “It sucks to be you” or “Get an education so you can get a better job.”
How simple that sounds to my ears. I am sure we are all aware it is just not that simple.
In Women’s and Gender Studies, we call this the “triple whammy,” meaning that single mothers make less money, receive hardly any leave to attend to their sick children and have lives that are, with both work and family, very time-consuming. I say this not to cast aspersions on those who live in these circumstances but to create an illustration of the lives so many of our facility services staff face. Their lives make even the worst-off of us look plush by comparison. Yet they still somehow make ends meet and get by.
The government is set up to benefit the nuclear family. Since approximately 25 percent of people live in a nuclear family, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the other 75 percent of Americans are trying to survive under a government that was not designed for them.
I think it proper to give Camara the last word. “To believe people have a choice is to ignore the impediments that people have in this country, especially minorities. To believe that minorities have a choice of poverty or wealth is not really a choice at all.
The people that make this campus run – the LSU football players, the facility and food workers – are the two groups of people that are exploited the most. The campus simply does not run without them. Without a living wage we have a system that is unjust and exploitative.”
 
Sevetri is a mass communication sophomore. Contact her at [email protected]