4 • Monday, October 18, 2010
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OPINION OUR VIEW
Jared Rader, opinion editor dailyopinion@ou.edu • phone: 405-325-7630
COLUMN
All OU employees deserve Wage gap real living wage, good conditions reason behind There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Fight Club” in Living Wage Calculator. which Tyler Durden, the leader of an underground moveTo address this problem, Students for a Democratic Society ment, and his followers kidnap the police chief who is trying has launched a living wage campaign and created a website, to shut them down. livingwage4ou.com, where it will anonymously share the sto“Look, the people you are after are the people you depend ries of people who work full time for the university but don’t on,” Durden says. “We cook your meals, we haul your trash, earn enough to support the basic needs of their families. we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard One member of Students for a Democratic Society providyou while you sleep.” ed The Daily with some stories the organization has heard The people Durden is talking about are some of the lowest from employees: wage earners in the U.S., disillusioned with a world that treats • A custodian on campus makes $8 per hour, and due to his them as the lowest members of society. low wages, is unable to afford health insurance for his child. While we don’t have to worry about them starting an insur• A worker on campus said his employer has censured rection like they do in “Fight Club,” there’s one thing that rings him in the past simply because he showed up in a picture in very true about Durden’s statement: we depend on them. a news story. He fears he can be fired at any time after that These workers do all the encounter. He thinks the atdirty work no one else wants will employment policy is to do. Because we depend on “bullshit.” These workers do all the dirty work no one else these individuals, shouldn’t • Multiple custodians and wants to do. Because we depend on these we make sure they can at least Facilities Management emindividuals, shouldn’t we make sure they can at earn enough to afford basic ployees said managers inleast earn enough to afford basic living conditions structed them never to talk living conditions for themselves and their families? to others about their workfor themselves and their families?” The term for this kind of ing conditions, and that they pay is “living wage,” which should refer any questions means a person working a full-time job is able to pay for shel- people asked of them to their managers, risking termination ter, food, health care and transportation. of employment if they don’t. There are some employees at OU whom we depend on that This is inexcusable. make less than a living wage. These workers have practically Some have argued that raising the wages of these workers no voice because the university has as much control over could increase tuition and fees because the university is a them as possible. not-for-profit institution. However, it doesn’t have to be this In the preface of the OU Staff Handbook is a sentence ex- way. plaining that OU can fire any employee for any or no reason Consider the high pay for administrative employees and at all. This has silenced some of the lowest-paid workers, such even OU President David Boren. The Chronicle for Higher as custodians, Facilities Management workers and food ser- Education reports that Boren received a package of about vice employees, who are worried that if they complain, they $631,000 during the 2008-2009 academic year. could lose their jobs. While we know Boren puts much of what he receives back Today, however, one student group is standing up for these into the university, couldn’t a portion of that — and a small workers and giving them a voice, arguing that the universi- portion of other administrators’ wages — go toward these ty ought to increase their living wage and treat them more workers who have families to support? humanely. We applaud the efforts of Students for a Democratic Members of Students for a Democratic Society have talked Society for bringing this issue to light and encourage all stuwith some of the lowest wage earners on campus, who make dents to demand the university give employees the wages only $8 per hour. they deserve. To support a family of four, these workers would need to make about $13 per hour, according to Penn State University’s Comment on this column at OUDaily.com
COLUMN
Breast cancer awareness month overshadows other deadly diseases To capitalize on National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, several events have appeared on the student calendar encouraging us to tackle one of America’s most hated diseases. As students respond by participating in said events, the community has good reason to be proud. However, there also is some cause for shame. While spreading awareness for breast cancer is a noble goal, it also is singleminded. Many activists are unaware that, as we raise glorious amounts of cash for breast cancer research, patients of different cancers are ignored as a result. Prostate cancer affects more people. Pancreatic cancer — in a close race with liver cancer — is infinitely more painful and more likely to kill its victims. Lung cancer, of course, is king. It’s estimated to kill more Americans than every cancer mentioned in this article combined. It alone accounts for a quarter of all cancer-related deaths and has a five-year survival rate of about 14 percent. Compare this to the fiveyear survival rates for breast cancer, which are mostly in the high eighties. Despite being less severe, breast cancer often receives priority over other types of cancer awareness. This is
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probably because it’s more marketable — livers, lungs or breasts, pick the most appealing — but it’s still counter-productive to the ultimate goal of ending cancer in general. While less widespread than prostate or lung cancer, breast cancer dwarfs both in fundraising, mostly due to the large amount of breast cancer-specific coalitions. For example, one-third of the top-rated charities by Charity Watch were dedicated solely to breast cancer, while most others were devoted to generic cancer. A generic cancer organization itself, the National Cancer Institute appropriated just less than $300 million to lung cancer research last year, yet breast cancer research received more than twice as much. The statistics go on and on. Does this seem appropriate considering lung cancer kills four times as many people as breast cancer does? Furthermore, breast cancer has seemingly developed its very own economy. The Oklahoma Memorial Union sells cookies for proceeds, the “boobies” bracelets are
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a hit, numerous marathons have been organized and the pink ribbon is instantly recognizable. It has a wellpublicized month of raising awareness. Conversely, how many people know what color the ribbon is for any other type of cancer? The campus missed Prostate Cancer Awareness Month back in September. We hopefully won’t make the same mistake when lung cancer and pancreatic cancer compete for attention with their own movements this November.
While less widespread than prostate or lung cancer, breast cancer dwarfs both in fundraising, mostly due to the large amount of breast cancer-specific coalitions.” I’m not the first person to complain about the disproportionate awareness concerning breast cancer: In 2007, the National Prostate Cancer Coalition released a report highlighting disparities in federal funding, research and even media coverage between breast cancer and prostate cancer. One particularly
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disturbing detail in the report was that for every seven drugs on the market that treated breast cancer, there was only one for prostate cancer. News coverage for breast cancer also was 2.6 times more prevalent. If one thing is made clear by these disparities, it’s that breast cancer victims aren’t the only ones who deserve our support. While breast cancer is still a terrible disease that requires attention, that shouldn’t come at the expense of patients suffering from even worse ailments. They are entitled to the same level of awareness, if not more than, breast cancer patients receive. None of this makes National Breast Cancer Aw a r e n e s s M o n t h n o t worth participating in, but it does raise the bar for future awareness months for different types of cancer. Feel free to freak out for the remainder of October — just be ready to match that effort once November comes around. A pair of lungs might not be quite as marketable as a pair of breasts, but they’re infinitely underappreciated. — Steven Zoeller, University College freshman
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poverty, social issues in U.S.
During President Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, he popularized the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.” The point of this phrase was to emphasize that, all of the irrelevant, marginal issues aside, the performance of the economy is the central engine that drives everything else, especially politics. I think a similar wake up call might benefit those who are concerned about inequality, poverty and social injustice. It’s not poor education that primarily causes these social ills. It’s not low taxes that primarily causes them either. It’s the wages, stupid. In the past 15 years, the STAFF COLUMN MN percentage of national income paid to the botMatt Bruenig nig tom 80 percent of wage earners has decreased 9.5 percent. In the same time period, the percentage of national income being paid to the top 1 percent of Americans has increased by 8.5 percent. Additionally, the latest census found that the income gap between the rich and the poor is the highest ever recorded. Perhaps contributing to this fact, in the last 40 years, the minimum wage when adjusted for inflation has declined by more than 28 percent. The poor are getting poorer, their wages are declining and inequality is increasing. This creates a whole cocktail of problems that most are probably familiar with by now. Poverty often leads to addiction, crime and violence, as well as low and unstable standards of living. Beyond that, rising inequality in income negatively impacts social programs funded through regressive taxes, such as Social Security. The recent Social Security Trustees’ Report provided data that showed rising income inequality has caused nearly half of the projected Social Security shortfall. So, we know inequality and poverty are increasing, but what does anybody propose to do about it? This is where the real disappointment begins. College students, even some attending this university, are often among the group of people that pretend to care about these issues, and think that something should be done about The poor are getting them. But what most of poorer, their wages them end up doing in are declining response is pointless at best. and inequality is Take Teach for America increasing. This for example. College stucreates a whole dents from across the cocktail of problems country sign up to waste their time for two years that most are probably making fruitless attempts familiar with by now. at closing the education Poverty often leads gap. I say fruitless because the program makes to addiction, crime no effort to actually solve and violence, as well the problem. as low and unstable We know that schools standards of living.” in low-income communities are underfunded because the tax base of the area is poor. We know that students from low-income families have a harder time excelling in school due to unstable households, neighborhood effects and other poverty-related causes. The cause of the education gap then is not largely bad instructors in the schools. It is not because the school does not have enough charitable 22-year-old teachers right out of college. It’s the wages, stupid. If we improve the wages of the poor parents, we increase taxable income in poor areas and we decrease poverty-related distractions. This approach would not just help improve the education of those living in poor areas and households, but would also likely contribute to solving other problems caused by poverty as well. That’s right: reducing poverty might actually be a good way to solve poverty-related problems. While that seems obvious enough, you would not be able to tell by the droves of students dedicating themselves to programs like Teach for America that encourages people to sloppily contend with the consequences of poverty instead of working to eradicate poverty itself. If people are really serious about combating poverty, inequality and social injustice, then they need to keep wages a top priority. Work on a living wage campaign or help organize a union and address the root problem. — Matt Bruenig, philosophy senior
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