G'Town Students Spend Spring Break Fighting for Worker Justice

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
While many of their fellow students were off carousing sun-drenched beaches in time-honored Spring Break tradition last week, nine Georgetown students rallied and leafleted in DC in an Alternative Spring Break program entitled “Worker Justice DC.” The jam-packed week included taking part in direct action and leafleting campaigns – coordinated by SEIU 32BJ – with Northern Virginia janitors and DC security guards, rallying and participating in street theater at Tuesday’s DC City Council vote on the paid sick bill, discussing future opportunities in the labor movement with Metro Council President Jos Williams, and visiting with Alexandria construction workers who are training – through the Residential Construction Workers Association, which works to improve the lives of all workers employed in residential construction – to receive their special certification cards . The program also emphasized the responsibility, as students of a Jesuit university, for working towards social justice and showed students the intersection of Catholic social teaching and low-wage worker issues. "We considered ways in which we could advocate for justice in our immediate community and around the world," said Andrew D'Souza, a freshman in the School of Foreign Service. "We would like to thank Interfaith Worker Justice and the Center for Social Justice for this eye-opening experience. And to all the workers around Washington and beyond, we, Georgetown students, stand with you in solidarity for justice." The program was coordinated by Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, and Georgetown University Center for Social Justice. –report by Julia Leis, Program Coordinator and IWJ Organizer