Student Labor Week of Action

Labor Notes profiles the March 27th- April 4th week of actions (250 events in all) led by Student Labor Action Project and Jobs with Justice entitled Resistance and Recovery involving students from campuses across the country :

s the corporate attack on workers intensifies with the economic crisis, JwJ activists and college students took the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination as occasion to push back.

Putting some weight behind the 1.5 million signatures they’ve collected in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, JwJ chapters and students rallied all over the country. Students and community groups at University of Central Florida confronted corporate heads outside an anti-EFCA seminar hosted by the university and an anti-union law firm.

Rallies at Rite Aid pharmacy locations around the country supported employees in California fighting for a first contract. In Massachusetts, hundreds picketed outside Home Depot, a major anti-EFCA player.

For the tenth straight year, student-labor activists joined forces on different campuses. Student groups lobbied in Washington, D.C., for a higher education funding bill called the DREAM Act, while others pressured school administrators to support EFCA. They also intensified a years-long fight for the Designated Suppliers Program, which would ensure that schools uphold “sweat free" policies when buying university apparel.