4-26-07, 9:22 am

Twelve students at The University of Vermont have launched a hunger strike demanding a living wage for the university's lower paid staff, according to the Student Labor Action Project.

The campaign to compensate the school's employees fairly began in 2005 when students convinced the university's President Daniel Mark Fogel to create a Basic Needs Budget Task Force.

In 2006, the task force found that about 250 of the university's employees earned less than what they must in order to supply their basic needs.


So far President Fogel has refused to implement the recommendations of his own task force and provide pay raises to these underpaid staff.

To help him change his mind, students organized a petition drive, public demonstrations and rallies, and even erected a 'tent city' on the campus to protest the unfair treatment of many of the university's workers.

Student organizers believe that the hunger strike is a last resort as all other means of communicating their demands to the university administration have been ignored.

Support the campaign and send a letter to President Fogel by clicking on the icon in this article.

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