NAKED IN VERMONT

This article came from the Burlington Free Press and was originally printed on November 8, 2007 and reprinted on January 5, 2008 for those who missed it.

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Last heard from when they ended a five-day hunger strike last spring, student labor activists at the University of Vermont re-emerged Wednesday with a different public spectacle that required another form of personal discomfort: marching across campus unclothed on a raw November day.

Their destination was President Dan Fogel’s office in Waterman. He wasn’t there, but at least the building was heated, and the demonstrators — about 25 strong — stood outside the executive suite for a couple of minutes chanting before they filed downstairs to get dressed.

The event had been billed — quietly, to maintain surprise — as a naked march in support of the campaign for livable wages. The undress code was not strictly observed: Only a few marchers were stark naked; some wore underpants; and a few were fully clothed.

Still, there was plenty of skin to gain the attention of onlookers — of which there were plenty at the noon-hour, starting in the Davis Center.

The demonstrators’ demand, as it has been for several years, is that the university pay a livable wage to its own employees and require the same of its contractors.

A livable wage is the minimum pay rate necessary to meet basic needs such as housing, food, transportation and the like.

The standard usually cited in Vermont is the “basic needs” budget compiled by the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office, which recently came up with a figure of $13.94 an hour for a single person with employer-assisted health care.

The lowest starting wage for service workers at UVM under a contract ratified last year is $10.60 an hour.

An added demand is that the university not stand in the way of a union organizing drive among the last large batch of employees who are not represented in collective bargaining: university staffers, including clerical workers, lab technicians, administrative assistants and others, more than 1,200 total.

These demands come from the Student Labor Action Project, which organized the Wednesday event and handed out printed slips en route headlined: “Why are these people naked? We’re marching nude to remind you that many UVM workers can’t afford their BARE NECESSITIES. The NAKED TRUTH is that 400+ UVM employees don’t meet their basic needs.”

Shortly after noon, the demonstrators emerged in various states of undress from a room on the fourth floor in the Davis Center. They carried signs reading “Livable Wages Now,” “The Bare Necessities” and chanted, “Hey-hey, ho-ho, poverty wages have to go” as they proceeded down the stairs.

The stairway that sweeps down through the Davis atrium is well suited to this sort of public processional, especially during a crowded lunch hour.

They drew plenty of smiles and quizzical looks as they marched out the back door, past the library and across the green. Perhaps the most incredulous expressions belonged to drivers on South Prospect Street as the throng crossed in front of them to enter Waterman. The walk outdoors took about 10 minutes, at 38 degrees.

After they chanted outside Fogel’s office, SLAP member Max Tracy thanked everyone for coming and highlighted the demands: that workers be paid enough so they don’t have to “choose between getting winter coats and putting food on the table” and that the university administration proclaim neutrality with respect to the union-organizing effort. Tracy said university policy prohibiting organizing discussions during work hours was unfairly intimidating.

Not much has changed since the student outburst last spring. The hunger strike ended in the face of a new calculation that showed UVM’s lowest paid workers were receiving a livable wage when all their benefits were factored in.

However, SLAP members point out that some of those benefits — such as tuition remission for UVM employees — don’t count as basic needs. SLAP is pushing to reopen the discussion — particularly for the lowest paid workers employed by contractors at UVM.

One thing that has changed is the calculation of the livable wage — it keeps going up. The current “basic needs” wage for a single person with health care, as computed by the Joint Fiscal Office, is 32 cents an hour higher than it was in the spring.
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