Dean of Students Juan Guardia signed a value statement, emphasizing a commitment to public education and good jobs while denouncing President Donald Trump and Wal-Mart. The statement comes in the wake of a protest against Trump and Walmart outside of McMicken Commons on Wednesday.
“I did sign the value statement,” said Guardia. “In this case, and all cases pertaining to students’ freedom of expression, as Dean of Students, I advocate and support all students’ expression and first amendment rights.”
Guardia made a point, however, to remind students that their activism must remain in compliance with the law.
“Prior to the event on Wednesday, I contacted Caroline Lembright, a member of the College Democrats and advised her that all UC students are members of our academic institution, and I support all students rights of expression, and the Division of Student Affairs wants to assure them that we respect and support students expression,” Guardia said. “In doing so, I also remind students that as they exercise their right, they must comply with the law, the Student Code of Conduct and the Bearcat Bond. As such, the Division of Student Affairs is here to support and assist our students in any way.”
Guardia and College Democrats President Ellen Huggins presented the statement of values at the end of UC’s leg of the “2017 Trump and Walmart Making America Worse Tour.” This was part of a campaign by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UCFW).
The event was hosted by UC College Democrats and Cincinnati Socialist Students.
“When it comes to the most powerful position in the country — the president — and when it comes to the largest private employer in the country — Walmart — we see often a very similar agenda,” said Amy Ritter, communications director for Making a Change at Wal-Mart.
A number of speakers covered a wide variety of issue ranging from Walmart’s labor practices concerning working mothers, LGBTQ workers and the experience of American workers in general.
Healthcare was an important issue to many at the rally. City council candidate Brian Garry emphasized the need to end corporate welfare. City council candidate Greg Landsman later elaborated, mentioning that Ohio has more workers on Medicaid and Food Stamps than any other company, and that taxpayers are essentially paying for the wages and benefits that Wal-Mart should be providing.
According to the Dayton Daily News, in 2013, the number of Walmart employees or family members on Medicaid in Ohio was 14,684 out of its total 48,630 employees.
Walmart employs 50,500 people as of 2017. As Walmart continues to cut healthcare benefits, many workers have signed up for the ACA, which has been a target by certain Republican lawmakers for repeal and replacement, despite fervent opposition.
Free market proponents argue that the taxpayers are not subsidizing profits for Wal-Mart by paying for public benefits, but rather that Wal-Mart’s wages must be higher to attract employees with public benefits and those who are poor will get the benefits whether they are working or not. This essentially argues that Walmart is raising low-income people’s wages.
Labor supporters argue that Wal-Mart’s profits are high enough to provide higher wages and benefits in place of welfare programs anyway.
Making Change at Walmart, another campaign by the UCFW, also claims that Walmart and President Trump share a common goal in support of for-profit charter schools. Trump’s Secretary of Education has long been an advocate for charter schools, and the Walton family — the owners of Wal-Mart — have donated $15 million to her privatization foundation over the past five years, according to the UFCW.
“We have schools where kids aren’t allowed to bring books home because the budget is not there to provide books for our children,” said Cincinnati City Council candidate Michael Dillingham. “Yet we have people like Betsy DeVos trying to create a parallel, for-profit education system so that they can make billions and billions of dollars in profits from high stakes testing that only hurts our kids.”
Many Republicans point to charter schools as alternatives for poor public schools.
“I’ve heard that Cincinnati does decent with charter schools, but other places in the nation don’t seem to,” Cameron Uptmor, a fifth-year marketing student and member of the UC College Republicans, said. “I kind of support school choice because just because you’re born in an area that doesn’t happen to have a decent school doesn’t mean you should be stuck with it.”
On the same day, the student Republican group was having a fundraising event on the other side of the commons where students could pay a dollar to throw a water balloon at one of them.
“We realized there’s a protest going on, there’d be a crowd, thought it’d be a good time to get an audience. That’s really about it.” Uptmor said. “But the way I see it for the most part is if [Walmart owns] the business, they can run things their way. Of course, there’s limitations to worker abuse and things like that, but without specific policy points, I don’t have much to say about that.”
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