Students on day 11 of hunger strike for hourly employees pay raise


Twenty students at the University of Virginia Charlottesville campus are on a hunger strike protesting the low wages paid to hourly employees in the university system, the Huffington Post reports. The hunger strike, now at day 11, is organized by the Living Wage Campaign, a student group that’s pushed for higher pay for low level employees at UVA for the past decade. The Campaign is demanding UVA pay its employees at least $13 an hour, plus benefits. They also want the wages indexed to inflation. The hunger strikers have been repeatedly calling this a “moral choice” by the University on how much it pays its employees.

“We are engaging in this hunger strike to call attention to the administration’s moral hypocrisy and to finally produce results in the form of a Living Wage,” Joseph Williams, a UVA football player and hunger striker wrote on filmmaker Michael Moore’s blog. “Although I am exhausted, hungry, dry-mouthed, and emotionally taxed, I believe it is my responsibility as a member of the University community, and even more as a member of the human race, to stand up and speak for those whose voices have been silenced and whose livelihoods are marginalized by the policies of the current University administration.”

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