I have been asked several times to write or post on this issue of the wealthy liberal college president against the janitors but deferred thinking it was a local issue.
With hunger strikes turning deadly I would urge Dr. Donna Shalala to talk to the workers.
The janitors have been on a hunger strike for 13 days, the students for 6 — all part of a labor dispute that has turned unusually personal, with faculty members, students, union leaders and members of the clergy sharply criticizing Dr. Shalala.
Day after day, the janitors and their supporters heap invective on Dr. Shalala, who was President Bill Clinton's secretary for health and human services, saying she has not done enough to pressure the university's cleaning contractor to grant union recognition.
And day after day the hunger strikers grow weaker as they lie in tents set up in a protest zone they call Freedom Village.
"If you think of Donna Shalala's history, she has this persona of being an advocate for poor, marginalized people in this country," said Frank Corbishley, the university's Episcopal chaplain. "In this dispute she's clearly been an enemy of the working poor."
Four of the 10 janitors who began fasting two weeks ago had to stop for health reasons, including one who suffered a minor stroke, said Secky Fascione, a union organizer. Some strikers were visiting university trustees Monday and asking them "to intervene before somebody dies," Ms. Fascione said.
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