Hoping to follow in the footsteps of students of Harvard and other schools, Georgetown University students have initiated a campaign to pressure their school administration to implement a “living wage” for all on-campus workers.

“[The living wage] needs to be a comprehensive figure”, said Gladys Cisneros of Georgetown Solidarity Committee, allowing workers to “meet a decent standard of living”. Such a wage would cover workers’ basic housing and nutritional needs, needs that students claim workers have to work extremely heavy hours to meet with their current wages.

GU students hope that workers’ wages can increase to somewhere between $14- $15 per hour to meet living wage figures calculated by independent groups.

Currently, workers hired directly on campus are paid $10.25 per hour, while contracted workers earn about $8.50 per hour, a rate living wage supporters call “poverty wages”.

Such wages, said Cisneros, forced workers to spend so many hours working that they had little time to study English or spend time with their family.

Students have been organizing weekly protests and other activities to raise on-campus awareness of their concerns and to put public pressure on Georgetown’s administration.

The administration, in turn, says that workers’ wages are important to them but that recent financial woes makes it difficult for them to act on the issue.

"[The University] is committed to doing the best [it] can given the realities of [its] financial situation,” said Doug Shaw of University Communications in an interview with the Georgetown Independent. Shaw also pointed out that Georgetown’s endowment ($680 million) pales in comparison to that of Harvard ($22 billion), who implemented a living wage policy in 2001 after large-scale student protests.

Living wage supporters counter that although Georgetown has financial difficulties, it still has the financial flexibility to make living wages for workers a higher priority than other projects, such as the school’s new boathouse, which will cost around $15 million dollars.

“Whenever GU’s in a tough situation”, Cisneros said, “the first to go is the workers.”

Neither Georgetown or living wage supporters have been able to hold public discussions about the specific costs and possibilities of implementing living wages for workers because the university, for various reasons, does not publicly disclose certain portions of its budget.

To Pravin Rajan, presidential candidate for Georgetown’s student administration (GUSA), it’s important for students to stand up for the workers, who face punishment from contracting companies if they speak out themselves.

“The workers have a lot of fear that if they speak out they’ll lose their job,” Rajan said.

He also felt the campaign was important simply because it recognized workers’ contributions to Georgetown University.

“[The workers] are just as integral to the community as faculty and students,” Rajan said.