Living Wage Campaign hits the streets

Attendants of the Texas Association of School Board's Summer Leadership Institute got an education today on the impact of poverty wages on school worker families in San Antonio. Denied the right to collectively bargain, Texas public school workers do not make enough to sustain the basic needs of their families. Meanwhile, administrators continue to recieve disporportionate raises. SWU's report shows that San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent, for example, earns the annual salary of a cafeteria worker in just 11 days.

Genevieve Rodriguez, youth intern with SWU's Youth Leadership Organization, reflects on her experience.....

"Poverty: The state of being poor; lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts. Poverty is all around the world today. It is the burden of some, the death of others. Being a part of the youth today, we see a lot of issues that we are too naïve to understand. POVERTY is not one of them. It is so obvious and surrounding, it’s almost impossible to not notice it. Being a part of the Southwest Workers Union has been quite the experience, and it’s only my second week. Today the Southwest Workers Union took action against poverty in our school districts.

To see the statistics and the data about the kind of wages school workers make as opposed to administrators is flat out shocking. Our school districts have been keeping school workers such as custodians and cafeteria workers in poverty by keeping them from a living wage. That is why the Southwest Workers Union is taking action such as the one taken today. Today the Southwest Workers Union took action by marching in front of the Marriot Hotel and demanding a living wage for school workers, where hundreds of administrators from districts all over the state were gathered.

We chanted with our signs and a half-miler to get everyone’s attention. We heard honks coming from street to support our cause. That gave me a surge of joy, knowing that other people as well care about stopping poverty. I must say, since this was only my second protest, I was still intimidated when security came to talk to us. But even when I was shaking in my boots, we kept marching. We started a chant that I really liked. “The People united, will not be divided”. For me, it just showed that if you stick together you can not get broken down.

After chanting for a while we received news that the administrators were about to leave the hotel. We gathered our signs and headed for the front of the hotel. You can imagine the looks on the faces of some of them. Some of them came out and were all for the cause, others wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I held up the poverty graph. Some stopped to look at the data, others walked on by. Bumper stickers and flyers were passed all around just trying to get the word out.

Overall, I thought today went really well. We opened up some eyes, and let people know what’s really going on. The people were informed and that is what is important. If you do not know what is going on, then how can you know if you are a victim of the issue? Here school workers are the victims but as part of the Southwest Workers Union, I want to fight for them. And as long as I am a part of that, that is what I’ll do.
KSAT Channel 12 news video