162. Sit-in

In the fall of 1998, Harvard students began a Living Wage Campaign that would last for almost four years. The Campaign was headed by the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) and aimed to help all Harvard employees receive a “living wage”. The demands of the LWC were that each Harvard employee (janitors, security guards, cafeteria workers, etc.) receive a wage of $10 per hour or more. Most workers were receiving the minimum wage at the time, which was around $6.50. In 1998 Cambridge, MA, this was not enough to get by individually, let alone to support a family.

Beginning in late 2005, students at the University of Vermont (UVM) were involved in a movement to increase the wages of school employees such that workers could be given a "living wage." Primarily focused on food-service employees contracted by Sodexho, the nonviolent campaign sought out and acquired support from local officials, faculty, and even state legislators. The students believed they needed in intervene in order to secure a wage that was equal to the state standard of a living wage as established by the state legislature. 

Students at Washington University of St. Louis formed the Student Worker’s Alliance (SWA) in November 2003 after 36 Nicaraguan campus workers were fired and deported to Nicaragua. SWA aimed to “begin a living wage campaign” for all workers at the university.

In 2006, University of Virginia students launched an intensive campaign to raise minimum wages at their institution. Discontented with the minimum $9.37 an hour, these students urged the school’s administration to provide fairer wages, wages that they determined to start at $10.27 an hour. 

Students at University of Notre Dame started a living wage campaign at their school in September 2005 after learning about similar campaigns happening at Harvard University and Georgetown University. A living wage was defined as a family of four being able to live above the poverty line on the working parent’s salary. The Notre Dame students campaigned to raise the minimum pay wage from $8.25 up to $12.10 per hour. The group felt that it was the responsibility of the institution as social Catholics to understand the importance of achieving a living wage for workers. 

Indonesia's people, orangutans, and rainforest are threatened by the widespread planting of trees that produce palm oil for making processed food by giant corporations such as General Foods. 

In October of 1998, environmental groups organized protests against Home Depot, the world’s largest do-it-yourself hardware and supply store. The protests were in response to the purchasing and selling of old-growth wood (OGW), or wood from endangered, never before forested regions. In part the impetus for this campaign was that Home Depot had not fulfilled a promise made to Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and other environmentalist groups one year prior to stop the selling of OGW.

On 6 April 2006, a group of people dressed as large chickens entered McDonald’s fast food restaurants in seven cities around the United Kingdom. These chickens were a part of Greenpeace’s campaign against McDonald’s use of soya, a soybean plant, to feed its chickens.

On 28 September 1995 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company fired 329 port workers in Liverpool, England, for joining a picket line in solidarity with fellow port workers in Torside. The Torside workers were fired for protesting against the “free-market” style of labor, in which there was no job security, no wage security, and a constant change of working hours. In this format, workers could be phoned at any time and asked to come in to work.

In the early 1900s livestock, often the currency of exchange, formed the foundation of the Kenyan Kamba tribe’s economy.  A family’s herd size determined its wealth.  As Britain colonized Kenya, this localized provisioning enabled the Kamba to remain relatively self-sufficient.  

On 1 June 1961, Isaac Coggs, the only African American Member of the Wisconsin legislature, introduced a Humans Rights bill with two civil rights provisions: a fair housing law and a plan to reorganize the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Though Governor Gaylord Nelson supported the bill, it was met with resistance in committee, facing amendments to kill or cripple it. Opponents of the bill argued that real estate
brokers and home sellers should have the right to decide to whom they should sell homes.

In 2006 Richard Gillman gained control of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, Illinois, as he assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer. The company produced windows and doors for building homes and offices. Soon after, there were a series of layoffs and Gillman reduced the number of workers in the factory from 500 to nearly 240. 

In April 2009, Vestas Wind Systems announced the planned closure of two of its factories, which together employed 625 people.  The larger of the two, located in Newport, Isle of White, was the UK’s only major wind turbine production site.  Despite the UK environment secretary Ed Miliband’s discourse about green energy, the company claimed that there was not sufficient demand in the UK for wind turbines.  Vestas relocated these facilities to Colorado, where the market was better.

Reforms to the Canadian Criminal Code legalized abortion in 1969. Under the direction of Pierre Trudeau’s government, a constitutional amendment was made to Section 251 of the Code. The alteration limited legal abortions to be performed only when the mother’s health was at risk. In addition, abortions could only be performed in credible hospitals with licensed physicians and needed to be approved by a panel of doctors called Therapeutic Abortion Committees, which often consisted of all males.

On 16 May 1996, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania signed Senate Bill 1441 into law. This bill contained a series of welfare reforms, including cuts to medical assistance, a requirement that childless people between ages 21 and 58 work 100 hours a month to receive medical assistance benefits, and a condition that anyone making more than $5100 a year did not qualify for medical assistance. When implemented this legislation would cut 250,000 people off of medical assistance.

Towards the end of the reign of Gaius Caligula, a proclamation was sent out for a statue of the Roman Emperor to be built within the Temple walls in Jerusalem. This command broke the Jewish law of idolatry and was therefore rejected and strongly opposed by Jews in Palestine, most notably the large peasant population.

In the 1980’s, gay activists made their stand against sexual orientation discrimination in Manitoba. At this point in time, the members of the LGBTQ* were asking the Manitoba NDP government to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination under the existing Manitoba Human Rights Act.

Mexico’s political atmosphere has long dealt with corruption. For over 70 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) retained strict control over the government, manipulating elections in its favor. In 2000, Vincente Fox, of the National Action Party (PAN), gained presidential office. This election shocked the nation, as it broke the PRI’s uninterrupted rule. To Mexico, the 2000 elections marked a change in the government; Fox’s victory represented free and fair democratic elections.

In 1967 Yorkville Village, Toronto was a neighborhood inhabited by many aspiring artists, hippies, greasers, bikers, youth, and others looking to embrace the counter culture lifestyle.  This lifestyle attracted many youth who travelled from all across Canada to experience the environment Yorkville offered.  Due to the influx of youth to Yorkville during this time, many of whom were poor and actively avoided the mainstream idea of working for money, several resident hippies formed a community activist group called The Diggers (taking their name from a similar group in San Francisco

In the early 2000s, many residents of rural India did not own the land on which they lived and worked.  Without land rights, peasant farmers were often economically insecure.  

The exportation of live animals had been a subject of great debate in Britain during the early 1990’s. Britain’s harbors were being utilized to transport live sheep, cattle, and veal calves across Europe, but there were few laws protecting the rights of these animals as they were being exported. Animals were forced into cramped living quarters and could be without food or water for up to 24 hours while in cargo ships. 

By spring 1967 some of the legal barriers to racial equality in the U.S. had been struck down. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities and women, in workplaces and in facilities that serve the general public.  The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discrimination in voting.  

Following the rise of global food prices in 2007-2008, international investors began buying or leasing large tracts of land in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.  In these deals, called the “Great Land Grab,” local governments and private landholders sold over 203 million hectares of land.  Organizations, such as the Oakland Institute, have brought these exchanges to public attention through studies and media coverage.

On 8 August 2010, members of Roscommon Hospital Action Committee (HAC) held a sit-in at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) unit at Roscommon County Hospital. There were rumors that the government planned to shut down this unit at 8 PM that night, so 100 protestors blocked the doorway and announced that they were willing to stay there all night. Nurses made a banner out of torn sheets that read “Our Hands Can Save Lives but This Is Death at the Hands of Fine Gael and Labour.” Health service chiefs did not intervene, nor were there visible security forces.

After U.S. President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the battle for health care reform truly began to build in the United States of America. In fall of 2009, Mobilization for Health Care for All began a campaign for a single-payer health care system, soon known as “Patients Not Profits.”