We are writing as faculty members to express vigorous disagreement with The Daily's opposition to the Living Wage Campaign. The argument that Northwestern should continue to underpay its poorest workers so that they will receive federal and private assistance for which they will, you claim, otherwise be ineligible is unprincipled and paternalistic. Yet we find the argument that the invisible hand of the market will, in the event of a living wage for all, cause some workers to lose their jobs even more troubling. Northwestern is not an abstract marketplace but a real community. It is run not by an invisible hand but by real people with whom we interact daily.
The fate of our workers is up to the administration that employs them. If we, as an economic, intellectual and cultural community, hold our administration to a standard of justice for our most vulnerable members, then our administrators will support that value. If we do not, then they will not. In either case, it is we, rather than an invisible hand, who determine the fate of these members of our community. The Daily Northwestern can editorialize however it likes as to whether all of our workers deserve to be paid a living wage. But to claim that we, as faculty, administrators and paying students at this institution, are powerless to defend economic justice for all within our community is a profound mistake.
Helen Thompson, Associate Professor of English
Ivy Wilson, Associate Professor of English
is a member of the 
23 comments
like
Don't misinterpret that stance as advocating callousness, pissed off album; it's a stance that recognizes an individual's right to be callous if he so chooses. It also recognizes that forced compassion for others isn't really compassion at all.
The LWC isn't talking about that... they're just trying to convince NU to voluntarily raise wage rates (putting aside how practical that is considering the subcontracts). Certainly there are employers who voluntarily pay employees more than the bare minimum (remember Henry Ford's $5 day?), because higher wages do sometimes have hidden benefits... one of those benefits might be attracting better workers, but that's obviously not one of the LWC's talking points. But then again I suppose benefits/costs are irrelevant to many of these LWC advocates--yeah, maybe it's not the best thing economically, but it's *right*, and that supersedes any other argument.
I do think the sense of entitlement to rich people's money--or a rich university's money--is disgusting, especially when it ignores the fact that what's good for NU (new buildings, professors, all kinds of expenses that seem less righteous than a living wage) will ultimately create more jobs in construction, in food service, in all kinds of things. But at least no one seems to be talking about FORCING the administration to raise wages, which is where wealth-redistribution becomes immoral. If NU is convinced to raise wages voluntarily, mutual consent has been preserved.
Just because "Morty" is an economist who happens to have social justice work in his background does not mean his opinion is ultimately right. He does not support the living wage because he thinks it's ok for workers to have substandard wages. His loyalty to social justice clearly does not factor into the living wage equation or he would already have pushed for Northwestern workers to get it.
The entire university is run every year using less than 30 PERCENT of the interest earned on the NU endowment. Making sure every single subcontracted worker on campus gets a living wage still wouldn't even touch half of that interest. Sometimes it's ok to spend more money.