Students rally for higher minimum wage

Tufts Labor Coalition , United for Immigrant Justice (UIJ) and Tufts Democrats organized a rally at Davis Square on Nov. 9 in support of the Raise Up Massachusetts (Raise Up MA) campaign.

Raise Up MA aims to raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10.50 per hour and guarantee employees an hour of earned sick time for every 30 hours worked, according to junior Gabe Rojkind, a TLC member who helped coordinate the rally.

About 40 community members — mostly Tufts students — attended the 2 p.m. rally, which began in Davis Square and continued in Porter Square at around 3 p.m., junior Zobella Vinik, member of both the Tufts Democrats executive board and UIJ, said.

One of the main goals of the event, Rojkind said, was to collect signatures. In order to put the issue on the 2014 ballot, activists must collect at least 70,000 signatures from Massachusetts voters by Nov. 20.

Participants collected over 500 signatures on Saturday, Vinik said.

She noted that rally coordinators invited an economics professor from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as Paolo Castillo, a janitor who has been working at Tufts for 17 years, to speak.

“It was really good to hear different perspectives on the issue,” Hannah Dorfman, a junior who attended the rally, said.

Dorfman explained that Castillo spoke in Spanish about the movement’s importance to her.

Other student groups contributed to the rally in their own ways, Vinik said. AppleJam, a student organization that brings music artists to Tufts, lent their sound equipment to rally participants, and percussion group B.E.A.T.s helped attract Somerville residents with a performance at the beginning of the demonstration.

The event’s other main objective was to increase awareness about the Raise Up MA campaign and to encourage the Tufts and Somerville communities to get involved by giving them a means to create change, according to Rojkind.

“We feel ... that this was a topic that students aren’t talking about so much but really affects the lives of people who are around us every day,” Vinik said. “I think that it’s our responsibility to make sure our workers, whom we value so much, are getting the payment and the respect that they deserve.”

Vinik also mentioned that raising the minimum wage would benefit students who rely on work-study or other jobs.

She stressed the significance of examining and discussing politics within Massachusetts, as well as reminding students that they can participate.

“[We] have voting power in this state,” she said. “We have the ability to influence the lives of our neighbors.”

According to Vinik, TLC and Tufts Democrats independently found out about the Raise Up MA campaign earlier this year. Once school started, they reached out to each other, as well as to UIJ, to coordinate the Davis Square rally.

Rojkind said that, in preparation for the rally, Tufts Democrats contacted people in the Somerville community, including representatives of the Raise Up MA campaign. TLC and UIJ worked to increase support on campus by writing op-eds, making signs, advertising the event on Facebook and contacting departments and other student groups.

Both Rojkind and Vinik believe that the Raise Up MA rally was simply the right action to take.

“If you have a job, if you’re working full-time, you should be able to make ends meet,” Rojkind said.

He added that, in light of the recent economic recession, it is only fair to help people who are still struggling to pay their bills.

“We just came out of an incredibly destructive and painful period, and the people that caused [the recession] are doing the best and the people that suffered the most are still suffering the most,” Rojkind said.

He described the push for earned sick time as a precautionary measure for employees afraid of taking time off and losing their jobs.

Rojkind also spoke about the economic advantages of raising the minimum wage.

“In order to complete a full recovery, consumption is a necessary factor ... and the best way to boost consumption is to put money in people’s pockets,” he said. “Two-thirds of people making minimum wage are employed by large corporations, who are the people most able to afford a minimum wage increase.”

Rojkind and Vinik were happy to see so many people involved in the campaign and hope to hold another event next semester.

“I was really impressed with the enthusiasm that we were met with in the Tufts community,” Rojkind said.