As part of the Living Wage Campaign, alumnus Dennis Wilson and sophomore John Killeen are pushing to get a representative from the Washington College staff named to the Board of Visitors and Governors.
Wilson said that, when he was a freshman, he had never suspected anything could be amiss between the WC staff and the school that employed them.
"They were amazing people," he recalled. "Very friendly to the students, and very hard workers- wonderful at what they did."
As he came to know many of them through daily contact over the months and years, however, he slowly became aware of another, more hidden side to the secretaries, groundskeepers, and maintenance workers who all did their part to keep the school running: "a deep-seated feeling of powerlessness, and general sense of under appreciation".
The reason for these feelings of powerlessness and under appreciation is their lack of a voice in the governing body of the college, or more specifically, a lack of representation.
There is currently no permanent staff office on campus, and every year at the Board of Visitors and Governors meetings WC sends out one delegate to speak on behalf of the administration, one to speak on behalf of the faculty, and one to speak on behalf of the student body. WC does not send any delegate on behalf of the staff.
The campaign is the continuation of a movement initiated last year, also titled The Living Wage Campaign, which sought to better the lives of the staff.
"It's a process," explained Killeen. "Every semester, one more step towards the ultimate goal of an autonomous staff, a staff that can make its desires and needs known on its own terms."
Last year's campaign focused on raising the wages of staff members, some of whom at that time had applied for second jobs or even welfare in order to make ends meet.
It also lobbied at the Board of Visitors and Governors Meeting for the creation of a permanent position of a staff representative on the Board.
While the campaign succeeded in getting a higher wage, it failed to win acceptance for its proposal of a staff representative.
This year, seeing as the Board and administration do not have any intention of a selecting a staff representative, the Campaign will seek to elect a representative on its own, independently of the Board of Visitors of Governors, who will confer with President Toll and the administration on any matters concerning the staff on campus.
The presence of an official representative is seen as an important issue because, as Killeen said, "As it stands, staff members can only address problems on a random basis, meeting with Toll in his office as individuals. Often, this results in those individuals being alienated or dismissed with lists of facts and figures that wouldn't mean anything to them, and they walk away wondering if they have been heard. Too easily, individuals are ignored."
However, with one duly appointed representative to bring their concerns to Toll for them, this problem would be less likely because, according to Killeen, "an administrator could not alienate or ignore that representative quite so easily, because in doing so he or she would be alienating or ignoring the staff as a whole."
This year, as last year, the campaign is to consist of three steps. The first is informing the student body, chiefly through Blitzcmail and pamphlets distributed across campus.
The second is meeting with the administration, and the third is meeting with the staff, with whom "we are in constant communication," said Wilson.
The first step drew many positive responses last year, particularly from the staff and administration. The second step, meeting with administration members, was particularly beneficial last year because it led to "an understanding of the difficulties they had to work with," Wilson said. "That it's not just an us-against-them thing, the administration deciding not to spend money on paying the workers enough. "
Wilson continued, "A few years ago, the college was going through some tough financial times. Toll and the administration had to do a lot of budget juggling to get things in line."
Those efforts paid off as "The college is now doing really well." It was this increase that enabled the college to increase the wages.
Killeen recalls the success of Toll's budget adjustments as "the real positive argument to make about the Toll administration: that it brought the college back to solvency, so to speak."
Killeen expressed hopes of similar success with this year's campaign. "A solid group of students have come forth to express interest in helping out, and it's a really well-anticipated movement. A lot of people have had this on their minds for a long time."
Starting next week, Killeen and Wilson will hold meetings on campus with members of the staff and students, and they hope to begin plans for a staff election of a campus representative.
"It's more than pay, more than benefits," said Killeen. "It's feeling as though they do have a voice."
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