Danielle Christmas

Danielle Christmas

Communist Party award breakfast

The 2005 Missouri/Kansas Friends of the Peoples Weekly World annual awards breakfast drew more than 130 trade unionists, activists, and religious leaders to the Hershel Walker Peace and Justice Awards Breakfast on April 30. The event, then in its 13th year, honors Hershel Walker, a life-long peace and justice advocate who joined the Young Communist League USA in 1930 and spent the rest of his life in the Communist Party USA. Walker was killed in a car accident in 1990 while on his way to deliver petitions for the campaign to save 4,000 jobs at Chrysler Plant #1 in Fenton, Mo.

2005 award recipients included state Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford (D-St. Louis), Progressive Vote organizer Margarida Jorge, and the registered nurses of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 655.

The keynote speaker was Keren Wheeler, editor of Dynamic, the YCL magazine, and the event included remarks from Student Worker Alliance member Danielle Christmas. The SWA had recently won a living wage for Washington University campus service staff after a 19-day sit-in. Christmas thankedd the World for its coverage and support. “This truly was a community victory,” she said.

The Missouri Legislature had recently passed HB 539, which eliminates Medicaid services for up to 130,000 state residents.

After receiving her award, Mott Oxford, who opposed the bill, apologized for the Legislature’s action and vowed to do everything in her power to fight implementation of the cuts.

The breakfast also recognized the lifelong contributions of John Pappademos, who had recently celebrated his 55th year in the CPUSA. Pappademos received a standing ovation from the packed union hall. Members of SEIU Local 2000, AFSCME Local 2730, CBTU, and UFCW Local 655 were among those who attended, along with state Rep. John L. Bowman and 22nd Ward Committee members Jay Ozier and Fay Davis. The event raised more than $4,000 for the World’s 2005 fund drive and local activities.

Supported student hunger strike

In April 2005, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, commited at least $1 million over the next two years toward higher salaries and better benefits for low-paid contract employees as a result of a 19-day sit-in by students demanding a living wage for service workers. Wash U’s Student Worker Alliance reached a groundbreaking agreement with campus officials April 22. “We won more in the last 19 days than we won in the last 18 months put together,” said SWA member Ojiugo Uzoma.

The new agreement is a significant step towards a living wage for campus service workers, who were making an average of $7.50 an hour. The university agreed to continue working towards a living wage and to form a joint student-university committee, with SWA representation, to improve university policy of freedom of association for all workers directly or indirectly employed by the university. Also, the university will join the Workers’ Rights Consortium, which ensures that factories producing university clothing and other goods respect workers’ rights.

At the April 22 victory rally, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) told SWA members, “You students risked a lot. But it was a worthwhile victory.”

Missouri state Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal told the Communist Party USA's Peoples World, “These courageous students fought their butts off. Never, for one moment, did they think about giving up.” During the last weekend of the sit-in, Chappelle-Nadal joined the students on the hunger strike and slept in the admissions office with the students.

Throughout the sit-in, community and labor support was strong. On April 7, Missouri AFL-CIO President Hugh McVey led a rally at Washington U in support of the students. John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, sent a letter of support. Every day during the sit-in, labor and community groups, including the Missouri-Kansas Communist Party, brought the students lunch and dinner, and helped organize noon and 5 p.m. rallies. Throughout the hunger strike, religious leaders kept a 24-hour vigil outside of the admissions office.

“Nineteen days is a long time,” said Joan Suarez, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, the Workers Rights Board and Jobs with Justice “Everyone talks about the courage of these students.” Suarez said that as the students were leaving the admissions office, workers walked up to them and told them, “Thank you.” Many had tears in their eyes, she said.

The Washington U victory came just weeks after students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., went on a hunger strike and won living wages for campus employees there. “SWA learned from like-minded groups across the country,” said Danielle Christmas, an SWA member. “We saw other students take power into their own hands. We knew that if things were going to change here, we had to take power into our hands,”

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