IHSI Diversity Committee Monthly Resources
Each month, the IHSI Diversity Committee shares recommended reading and resources with the rest of IHSI staff. Curating and sharing these resources gives our team an opportunity to educate ourselves on various topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
Over the past couple of years, we have found that our team appreciates the ability to learn more about a subject they knew very little about or even may not have been aware of.
As an institute devoted to promoting all forms of health, we want to share these resources more broadly with our campus and community stakeholders. We hope that you will find them as useful as we have.
October 2024
This month, Amy Clay, IHSI’s Communications Manager, shares resources on the labor movement and the living wage.
From September 23 - October 1, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign food service workers and building service workers went on strike to negotiate a better contract. The Service Employees International Union Local #73 (SEIU 73) represents 763 food service and building service workers who had been in contract negotiations for months prior to striking.
At the center of contract negotiations was the call for a living wage, the hourly rate that an individual in a household must earn to support themselves and/or their family, working full-time. The MIT Living Wage Calculator provides a living wage estimate for each locale according to family size. For the Urbana-Champaign community the living wage estimate is $19.95 for a single person without dependents. Building service workers start out making around $18 an hour. The minimum pay for food service-sanitation workers is $17.97. Union members are also seeking additional protections for food service workers, the vast majority of whom are laid off each summer and are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Each year, this causes housing precariousness as these workers face impossible decisions between trying to pay for summer health care and the other needs of their families.
After an eight-day strike, SEIU 73 members voted to approve a new three-year contract that includes a $500 signing bonus for workers and pay raises of $1.00, $0.90, and $0.85. They also negotiated to retain more food service workers over the summer. Those laid off will be offered work opportunities as usual. Those not laid off will be guaranteed 40 hours a week. Additionally, dining workers will now reach top pay in two years.
Below are some resources on the role of unions in protecting workers:
If you have just a minute: SEIU 73, the Non-Tenured Faculty Coalition, and Illinois’ Graduate Employees Organization offered updates as well as some quick and easy explainers over on Instagram, including information on why workers go on strike, how to support striking workers, and more on the specific concerns of food service workers and building service workers.
If you have three minutes: Read this op-ed by Stephanie Fortado and Gus Wood in the School of Labor and Employment Relations: Our Turn | University striking out with essential workers
If you five minutes: Learn more about how unions advance equity for marginalized workers
If you have ten minutes: learn more about history of the labor movement at the University of Illinois.
If you have forty minutes: Check out the Sum of Us Podcast episode on how workers in Kansas City organized to have the city raise the minimum wage to $15/hour: Sum of Us Podcast Ep. 4 | Kansas City, MO: Flipping Burgers. Terrence Wise was a Black man flipping burgers at a McDonald’s in Kansas City, Missouri. Bridget Hughes was a white woman punching the clock at a local Burger King. Neither saw a way out of their dead-end jobs until they teamed up to join the movement for a living wage. These improbable modern-day labor leaders share the story of their friendship and how they came to see racism as the common enemy in the battle against poverty in America.