At UIUC, Building Service Workers were assigned to go clean up the tents and belongings of demonstrators on campus. They complained to their union, SEIU Local 73, about being asked to do work outside their contract. The Union wrote a formal demand letter to the administration, which blew it off. The Campus Labor Coalition then prepared the following statement, explicitly with the approval of representives from Local 73, and asks for it to be widely distributed. Have any other campuses where demonstrations are taking place seen evidence of this kind of cross-union mutual support? Please inquire. Thanks — Helena Worthen hworthen@illinois.edu April 26, 2024 For Immediate release, The Campus Labor Coalition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wholeheartedly condemns the University administrations willful neglect of the Building Service Workers (BSWs) today in sending them, without instruction nor information of their rights of protection and safety, to engage in a potentially illegal disruption of a free speech protest. This attempt to force our amazing BSWs to participate in the suppression of a political action is woefully irresponsible and unacceptable in trampling on the human, civil, and labor rights of any individual on this campus. The actions of university administration today not only jeopardize our BSWs’ agency to express their political right to refuse such a potentially dangerous order, but it is also an intentional act of disrupting the solidarity of workers, students, and all individuals at UIUC fighting for a more just and equitable world for all. The university administration lacks such respect for workers at UIUC that they sent BSWs to destroy people’s materials in a space they have typically not worked, without any information, without real orders, and without the legal right to refuse. This follows a number of previous incidents in the past where the university administration demanded that BSWs directly disrupt the protest of workers, students, and others on campus. Why must our BSWs continue to be put in the line of fire when the university continues to exploit them as expendable? As one SEIU member stated, BSWs have been asked to work in deadly conditions during the COVID pandemic, wash windows with long aluminum poles with lightning visible, climb ladders with only one foot and at dangerous angles, work out of defective trucks with holes in the floor, clean feces and blood smeared on walls, find dead bodies in rooms, find fetuses in toilets, and are constantly susceptible to attack at night with some being knocked unconscious. Our BSWs have to work through these stressful situations and now they are told to join in on a police action in attacking the rights and properties of other groups on campus. Whether it be inside or outside the bargaining room, we as campus Labor must unite together to demand these abuses against our lives and labor to STOP NOW! The Campus Labor Coalition calls on the UIUC administration to end all attempts to disrupt protests for free speech, including the potentially illegal use of BSWs in this political action. Campus Labor must be the foundation for solidarity and transformative change at UIUC. Therefore, campus workers, including those engaged in free speech protest for the end of violence in Gaza, must be respected by the very institution that uses our labor. The university only works because we do. La Lucha Continua, The Campus Labor Coalition UIUC Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com https://www.laborsbookstore.com/collections/all/products/power-despite-precarity-strategies-for-the-contingent-faculty-movement