Meredith Stepp: Why I Support a Living Wage at ASC December 13, 2007

 

Why I support a Living Wage at Agnes Scott College 
 

Over ten years ago, I recall reading the Profile piece “What it’s Like to Be a Maid Here” while attending Agnes Scott. The article was written just two years prior to my freshman year at ASC, yet somehow the description of the author’s experience as a custodian on campus had felt like forgotten history. As a student, I sometimes heard vague recollections of a living wage campaign at Agnes Scott; the dates were cloudy, the details spotty, the outcome unknown. It was a closed chapter in the college’s book of political growing pains.  

Having sat dormant for too long, that book has been recently reopened by a community of Agnes Scott students, alumnae, and faculty who have discovered what staff has known all long: that chapter hadn’t been resolved; its protagonists were left in the lurch. “What it’s Like to Be a Maid Here,” demonstrated the social caste system among ASC staff and marginalization of custodial workers. Today, economic segregation of campus cafeteria and custodial workers reinforces and perpetuates that caste system.  

The wages of ASC service workers have not kept pace with the rise in local cost of living and inflation. In addition to working full days cleaning campus buildings, many staff members work other night and weekend jobs in order to supplement their income. Much of this income is needed to purchase healthcare services which the school does not provide. Women who have worked forty-plus years straining their physical bodies to clean our dorms and classrooms face uncertain retirements with little or no insurance.  

Furthermore, the workload of campus custodians continues to mount as staff is downsized and cleaning responsibilities increase for those who survived the cut. The college touts its 1 to 10, student to faculty ratio but does not widely advertise its custodian to building ratio. Some staff are cleaning not one, but two, entire buildings alone. Slashing staff by six custodians, while maintaining the pace of production, is the sort of thing institutional shareholders would applaud if Agnes Scott were a for-profit entity. 

Agnes Scott is not a corporation. It is place of higher learning. It is an institution that encourages its students to “live honorably” and engage “in the intellectual, cultural and social issues of its times.” I share this vision with my alma mater. Since having graduated from Agnes Scott in 2000, I have devoted my life to social justice. In doing so, I have determined that social justice is inseparable from economic justice. This realization led me to my current field of study and occupation. I am finishing my master’s degree in labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst while working for a local labor union.  

As an Agnes Scott alumna, I often receive requests for contributions to the college’s annual fund. As a broke graduate student, I demurely decline. However my decision is not strictly a temporal function of time and money. It is difficult for me to prioritize charitable contributions to a college that boasts a $300 million dollar endowment. Instead, I earmark what little I can give to organizations with fewer resources that benefit populations in greater need. If Agnes Scott instituted a true living wage for all its staff, I would not have to pick between giving to my alma mater and organizations committed to social and economic justice.  

Agnes Scott College was established with the distinct mission “to educate women for the betterment of their families and the elevation of their region.” It is clear that the college’s founders believed in creating an educational institution that not only enriches the lives of its students but the lives of all those who support and nurture the college as well. The honorable men and women of who feed our faculty and students and clean our classrooms and dorms are intrinsic members of the Agnes Scott community. The college pledges its “commitment to a community that values justice.” I ask my college to be the change it wishes to see in the world. Value Justice: Provide Agnes Scott Staff with a Living Wage.

-Meredith Stepp, Class of 2001 Alum