George,

My name is Katie Cristol and I'm one of the students on the outside of the Living Wage sit-in at the University of Virginia. Zack Fields, one of the main organizers of the movement to force the University administration to pay its workers enough to live with dignity, is among the seventeen students inside Madison Hall (the administration building), and he asked me to get in touch with you in the hopes that you would help us publicize the developments of the past few days.

The students, who began their direct action on Wednesday morning, have not been arrested, as originally threatened, as yet--we understand that this is because of the size of the around-the-clock protest and media presence. But the administration is starting to tighten the situation for the students, cutting off the internet and now refusing to allow other students and community members to enter Madison Hall to bring food to the seventeen.

We are trying to make sure that everyone in the Charlottesville community recognizes that not only is the University administration content to pay its workers poverty wages, it is also willing to starve its students rather than raise those wages.

There is also concern that because the administration wants the situation to be "taken care of" by the weekend, the police will arrest the seventeen at 4:45 pm. There will be a massive rally outside Madison Hall at that time. ...The living wage campaign is encouraging supporters to email or call President John Casteen and tell them that the workers at the University deserve to make enough to live with above the poverty line--and that the students standing up for those workers deserve to be treated with dignity as well!

Casteen's email is jtc@virginia.edu and his phone number is 434-924-3337.

- Katie Cristol (electronic mail, 3:24 pm April 14, 2006 )