Campus hunger strike ends, follows protests nationwide

ST. LOUIS -- Student protesters who are advocating for better pay for Washington University contract workers will meet with Chancellor Mark Wrighton three times this week to discuss the issue.

The agreement, announced Saturday evening after Wrighton met with some of the student protesters, convinced some of the students to end a six-day hunger strike. However, the students said they would continue a sit-in at the undergraduate admissions office until they meet with Wrighton Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

About 15 students have been camped out in the undergraduate admissions office since April 4 and 12 of the protesters began their hunger strike last Monday. The students want the university to negotiate a living wage for the school's lowest-paid workers, such as groundskeepers and food service workers.

Wrighton met with the students Saturday night after a rally earlier in the day drew about 160 people who supported the students.

Wrighton has not issued a statement since the student protesters rejected his offer Thursday to contribute $500,000 toward salaries of campus contract workers. Wrighton also agreed the university would join the Workers Rights Consortium, a nonprofit labor rights group for college workers.

Wrighton also promised to meet with contract companies to discuss health care and contract guidelines.

Students elsewhere have been making similar demands. A hunger strike for workers rights at Georgetown University ended last month. And this week, students at University of Missouri-Kansas City protested against rising tuition costs and part-time faculty pay.

Students at Yale University, Columbia University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were expected to stage protests this week for contract extensions, union representation and higher wages for graduate workers.

"It's absolutely part of a national movement that students are becoming more aware of their dependence on the exploitation of workers," said Washington University sophomore Joe Thomas, 19, spokesman for the Student Worker Alliance, which has coordinated the protests at Washington University and chose this month for its sit-in, as hundreds of prospective students and their parents tour campus. "And they're understandably not happy with that idea."

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com