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April 4 Student Labor Day of Action

Wednesday April 4 is Chicago Student Labor Day of Action. Students, labor, faith-based and community organizations come together to support workers' rights and fight for prison justice and an end to privatization of education and public services.
The April 4th Day of Action was organized by the Chicago Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) and Chicago Jobs with Justice. This day commemorates the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was killed while fighting for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis.

The Day of Action commenced Tuesday evening at the University of Chicago with a forum called “Why Oppose the Prison System.” The event featuring a lively discussion with former prisoners and local prison activists such as Carlos Vega of the Prison Action Committee, Joanne Archibald of Chicago Legal Aid for Incarcerated Mothers, Geoffrey Banks of the Children and Family Justice Center, Simon Fisher of SLAP and the DePaul
Not With Our Money! Campaign, and Pari Zutshi of the Prison Moratorium Project.

Wednesday afternoon area students joined UNITE! organizers in their campaign against Lemon Scents Laundry. The group distributed flyers at the Hyatt McCormick Place, a client of Lemon Scents Laundry.

At 4pm, student, labor, community and faith-based activists descended upon the corner of State and Jackson downtown to rally against DePaul University’s foodservice contractor, Sodexho Marriott Services. Sodexho Marriott’s parent company, France-based Sodexho Alliance, is the largest institutional investor in Corrections Corporation of America, the leading for-profit prison company in the US. In addition, Sodexho Alliance owns 100% of private prison companies in the UK and Australia. The Not With Our Money! Campaign, in which students demands that Sodexho either divest from the private prison industry or get off campus, is active at more than 50 colleges and universities.
Between chants of “Dump Sodexho!” students related their organizing victories from the past year, including the anti-sweatshop and Justice for Janitors campaign. Union leaders spoke of struggles with companies like Sodexho Marriott, who actively fight organizing campaigns, and the need for students, communities and workers to struggle together.

The Day of Action wound down at Harold Washington College in downtown Chicago. Featured speaker Kamau Marcharia led a discussion on privatization, which especially threatens public universities and the Chicago City Colleges. Students, faculty and workers expressed concern over the growing influence of corporations in the public sphere.
 
 

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