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Date: 12/19/2022
AMHERST – The Amherst Labor Alliance (ALA), based out of Amherst College, is currently fundraising to support the expenses of Amherst College workers whose wages are insufficient for their cost of living. The fundraiser will last the entire month of December, projected to end by Jan. 1, 2023.
ALA member Melonie Huq described the organization as “a worker’s advocacy group.” Fellow member William Prince added that the alliance’s current efforts were focused on two specific groups of employees.
“Right now we are mostly focused on the – I don’t like the term ‘lower level,’ but lower-level workers, like [those who work at] Valentine Hall, our dining hall (‘Val’ for short) and facilities workers, like groundskeepers and custodians,” Prince said.
Both Huq and Prince are sophomores at the college.
Huq explained the origins of the fundraising effort.
“This came out of a few conversations with staff that we’ve been having over the course of the semester. One of the things we advocate for as a group is better pay for the workers on campus because their payment is not necessarily in line with the cost of living in Hampshire County…We’ve been accepting rolling requests from staff members for anything they might need,” Huq said.
Prince said that despite current poor economic conditions, the problem is not new.
“I would say almost certainly it goes back years. Again, I don’t like calling them ‘lower-level positions’ because that implies a hierarchy in how much effort is put into them. These positions are very demanding. They’re difficult, and the workers are not being paid enough money to reflect that difficulty…They’ve been paid at or slightly above minimum wage for most of Amherst history, and in my opinion they’ve never been paid enough to be properly compensated for their labor. And it also goes beyond just basic pay. A lot of these employees don’t have access to benefits,” Prince said.
The ALA created a form for workers to request specific amounts of money, and then used the sum of the requests to plan their goal.
“We sent out an invitation for people to request money, saying ‘If you need money, we’ll fundraise it for you.’ Based on those requests, we’ve calculated a current goal of $4,000, but a lot of the requests are flexible, where they say ‘We just need money, we’ll take however much we can get.’ So ideally we will surpass $4,000 and keep being able to provide these people with help,” Prince said.
The form does not pry into workers’ personal business, and the ALA designed the process to remove barriers to aid.
“We’re not turning anyone away, we’re not requiring people to give a detailed explanation of what they’re using it for. We’re mainly just providing this for a resource, and if staff are interested in taking it, we do the best we can to fulfill the request and raise money on their behalf,” Huq said.
Donations are collected electronically through Venmo. The ALA’s first point of contact for donors are other students on the Amherst College campus.
“We’re soliciting donations. We have a Venmo account set up temporarily for these purposes. Mainly we’re doing outreach with the students on campus. A lot of them have relationships and are familiar with the staff workers on campus, so we’ve been promoting the Venmo and also the stories of some of the staff members who agreed to make their requests public just to have a little more transparency about that,” Huq said.
The holiday season provides good motivation for donation, according to Prince.
“We’re advertising it like ‘It’s the season of giving, why not give back to the community, and the workers that help you?,’” Prince said.
The fundraiser is only for the month of December, but due to initial success, the ALA will probably repeat their fundraising efforts in the future.
“Right now we’re trying to have it end on Jan. 1. As the new year rolls in, we’ll probably be closing the Venmo account and we’ll finish distributing all the donations to all the staff that requested it. But given what we’ve seen so far, it’s very likely that we’ll do this again next year and maybe do something next semester as well,” Huq said.
Prince and Huq encouraged all local community members to support the ALA, including those outside of Amherst College, and provided information on how people can donate and get involved.
“Our Instagram account is ‘@amherstlabor.’ We have been advertising the mutual aid fund there, and we also use it to promote whatever else that we’ve been doing on campus…if you’re following us, then follow that account. If people are interested in donating, the Venmo account is also ‘@amherstlabor,’” Huq said.