Hey collegiettes! I’m part of the 15 Now Campaign. 15 Now has been a nationwide movement since several years ago, when 15 fast food workers in New York walked out of their work and called for a $15 minimum wage as well as a union. Soon after, that number increased to 50, then 100, then it spread to the rest of the country!
Our organization’s goal is to raise the minimum wage for all of Northeastern’s campus workers, including adjunct professors, to $15 an hour. Although adjunct professors do not get paid hourly, when calculated, their wages equate to less than $15 an hour…but they teach the same courses as regular professors. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the “typical hourly wage” for protective service employees in Boston is $21.61 but our security guards are now making $13.25 an hour. Working 40 hours a week for one month at this rate adds up to approximately $2,120, before taxes, and with monthly rent at $1,314, that leaves only $806 to cover food, healthcare, child care, transportation, education, leisure, etc.
Northeastern has many sources of funding, like endowments, $18 million in investments in the fossil fuel industry (which 75 percent of the student body voted to divest from last year), and the Empower campaign. These are sources where money can be drawn from to raise the wages of our workers. By ensuring that all campus workers can afford a decent standard of living, Northeastern would strive to fulfill its commitment to economic justice, and it would be the first university to institute a $15 minimum wage for its workers. SGA has approved of the feasibility of our referenda question, and now, we need 750 signatures by March 16th in order to put the question on the SGA ballot.
Those of you who are undergraduate students at Northeastern have the chance to vote on this issue by signing below! You don’t have to agree with our proposal. We’re just asking you to sign because we want this issue to be up for debate. So if you think this issue is important and should be up for debate, please click on the link below and sign the petition with your name, your husky e-mail, the last four digits of your NUID, your year of graduation, and your signature. If the issue ends up on the ballot, we need 20 percent of the undergraduate student body to vote on the issue starting March 26th, and if we end up passing this legislation, we will be the first university in the United States to institute a $15 minimum wage to all of its campus workers. Thank you very much!
Here’s the link to vote:
https://orgsync.com/25105/forms/135883
If you’re interested in becoming a part of the 15 Now Campaign, feel free to shoot me an e-mail at senderowicz.n@husky.neu.edu and help us fight for the wages of our workers at Northeastern. You don’t need to be well-versed in politics — you just need passion for the decent treatment of workers. I hope to hear from you — we need all the help we can get!