About Us

Wesleyan USLAC

Our Mission Statement

The United Student Labor Action Coalition is a student collective dedicated to supporting workers on campus.

In our organizing efforts, we aim to center FGLI students and students of color. We stand in solidarity with clerical workers, dining staff, Physical Plant, and custodians, and we strive to serve as a resource and a platform for student workers.

Through direct action, personal connections with workers and unions, and persistent dialogue with Wesleyan's administration and subcontractors, we leverage our power as students in order to pressure the university to meet the needs of workers.

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Wesleyan USLAC

Our History

USLAC was founded in the 1990s after a group of 20+ Wesleyan students participated in the AFL-CIO’s first Union Summer program.

In Spring 1999, USLAC members learned that Wesleyan had contracted out its janitorial services in 1989, converting union jobs to low-wage, no-benefit, non-union jobs. USLAC reached out to Local 531 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which was organizing a nationwide Justice for Janitors campaign. With their help, USLAC discussed the prospect of unionizing with janitors. After the janitors authorized SEIU as their union, USLAC supported their union bid by organizing petition drives to demand that Wesleyan remain neutral.

In late December 1999, Initial Cleaning recognized the union. Next, the union had to win a new contract with higher wages and benefits. To support the janitors in their negotiation with Initial and understanding that contractors would not increase wages unless they were paid more by Wesleyan,

USLAC launched a campaign to demand that Wesleyan pay a living wage to all campus workers by adopting a Code of Conduct.

For months, USLAC organized rallies and protests, met with administrators, and contacted alumni and parents. Seeing no progress from Wesleyan and Initial, in Spring 2000 USLAC organized an occupation of the Office of Admissions during WesFest until then-President Bennet gave in after 33.5 hours. The janitors won increases in wages, benefits, insurance, access to daycare services and ESL classes.
Over the next month, a committee of students and faculty spent more than 20 hours negotiating the Employment Code for Service Contractors with President Bennet. The Code guarantees minimum standards for compensation, benefits, non-discrimination and grievance procedures for contracted workers at Wesleyan. A Code Compliance Board (CCB) oversees the implementation of the Code.

USLAC played a major role in bridging the janitors and the SEIU, contributing an estimated 2,000 hours of unpaid organizing work to the campaign in 1999-2000.

In the spring of 2012, USLAC delivered a petition signed by 50 custodians and an open letter requesting that Wesleyan select a contractor that would end layoffs, alleviate the excessive workload caused by an increase of 10 buildings to clean without staff increases, and uphold workers’ rights. Sun Services (now SMG) won the contract in April, promising to retain all staff. When Sun Services reneged on its promise and planned to layoff 10 custodians by September, USLAC launched a petition against the layoffs and won.
In November 2016, the administration announced that R. J. Julia was replacing Follett as the new bookstore managing company. Though R. J. Julia initially promised all existing workers that their jobs would remain, only three were rehired by April 2017. After discussing and coordinating with the bookstore workers,

USLAC launched a campaign to demand that R. J. Julia allow all existing workers to keep their jobs, provide pay and benefits not lower than that offered by the previous contractor, and immediately inform workers of changes to their workplace.

On April 27, 2017 USLAC organized a protest rally to push for the demands and delivered a petition to a representative of R. J. Julia, and on May 4, Wesleyan and R. J. Julia compromised on the demands by increasing the minimum hourly pay of bookstore workers to $12 and providing bookstore employees in need of a new job with services at Wesleyan’s Human Resources office.
Starting in Fall 2018, USLAC began to organize with campus custodians to demand that Wesleyan and their employer SMG address the longstanding issue of excessive workload by hiring five more workers.

USLAC organized a petition drive and a protest to express this demand and also to protest the unjust firing of a custodian.

In December, after receiving no constructive response, USLAC organized a rally outside North College to pressure the administration to respond to the demands. Subsequently, USLAC members held several meetings with President Roth in which he expressed unwillingness to consider the demand to hire five more workers.
In Spring 2019, USLAC escalated the campaign. During the three days of WesFest in April, USLAC organized a series of sit-ins and rallies outside the Office of Admissions, as well as wildcat protests aimed at disrupting various WesFest events. With the administration failing again to meet the demand to hire five more workers, USLAC organized a rally two weeks later to continue to pressure the administration.
April's campaign included the largest and most sustained protests in Wesleyan’s recent history, attended by custodians, Physical Plant workers, state legislators, migrant activists, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and hundreds of students.
In Spring 2020, Wesleyan Administration announced a new timekeeping system for numerous workplaces on campus. USLAC and others formulated a petition demanding transparency with this decision and asking for worker input before any workplace adopted it. Workforce, which was explicitly anti-worker, was implemented after classes transitioned remotely and students were no longer allowed on campus. The implementation of Workforce has begun a host of problems in numerous workplaces.

USLAC surveyed workers at various places of employment and found that the overall sentiment across campus was negative.

Since implementation in Fall 2020, students and supervisors have complained about Workforce making it harder to get paid for their work on campus. Workforce has added more work to supervisors and has failed to be successfully universalized as promised. Wesleyan administration has continuously denied this problem.

Post-campus shut down in March 2020, USLAC also advocated for more worker’s protection and coverage during the pandemic. On May Day, a coalition of student groups and community organizations collaborated on a virtual rally and caravan. USLAC representatives spoke to the need for hazard pay and health concerns at our campus.

In November 2020, USLAC continued these efforts by working with ResLife student workers to demand hazard pay when campus shut down abruptly. ResLife forced them to stay for additional days, despite the campus being deemed unsafe. Workers wrote a letter of demands and received community support, but the administration denied their request.

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About
The United Student/Labor Action Coalition is a student collective dedicated to supporting workers on Wesleyan University's campus.
 
We stand in solidarity with clerical workers, dining staff, Physical Plant, and custodians, and we strive to serve as a resource and a platform for student workers.
Methods

  • Direct action

  • Conversations with workers

  • Relationships with unions

  • Persistent dialogue with subcontractors and admin

Contact

  • 190 High Street Middletown, CT 06459

  • info@wesuslac.org

  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

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