Schools
Hunger Strike For Janitor Jobs Ends At Tufts
Labor activists say they're not surrendering, just not starving themselves anymore.
After sticking it out more than 120 hours without a meal or a snack, the five Tufts students hunger striking against the university’s planned cuts to its custodial staff had all officially ended their protest fast by Saturday afternoon.
The mini-tent city set up in the Tufts’s quad - which has stood for a week, in solidarity with the strikers - was also taken down.
“Janitors and students alike were concerned about the welfare of our peers,” said freshman Nicole Joseph, in a statement from Tufts Labor Coalition.
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“Given that the administration refused to meet with us over the weekend and pushed off a meeting until Monday, we felt this was the best decision in order to ensure the well-being of the strikers.”
The hunger strike was the most recent in an ongoing series of efforts on the part of labor activists to stop Tufts from laying off 35 members of its custodial staff sometime around the end of May or early June.
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The hunger strikers and their supporters are pushing Tufts to either delay the layoffs until a 2016 contract renegotiation, or just let everybody keep their jobs.
Previous actions have included sit-its and marches, one of which led to a handful of arrestswithin the past few weeks.
A Boston Globe article offers conflicting accountsof how seriously Tufts University administration may have taken students putting the livelihood of custodians ahead of their own well-being.
Sophomore Zoe Jeka told the source that the university, “didn’t seem to care,” about the strike, and she got all of her medical advice and support from veteran protesters and other members of the labor community.
In an email to the Globe, Tufts said they do care, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.
“Our students’ safety has always been a priority,” wrote Kim Thurler, a spokesperson for the university.
“We will continue to work towards an appropriate and thoughtful restructuring of our custodial services.”
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Image Credit: WHDH Channel 7
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