As of Feb. 8, Students for a Democratic Society decided to become part of the United Students Against Sweatshops student labor organization, as they want to further their focus and efforts toward student employees and their wages.

Christian Heller, a senior peace & conflict studies major and the chair of USAS, said USAS will have the same core values as SDS and will operate similarly.

“At the core of what we’re doing, we are still fundamentally the same organization,” Heller said. “We are still fighting for reproductive rights, we are still fighting for LGBTQ rights, we’re still fighting for [Palestine].”

Although USAS was founded in 1997 with the intentions of improving labor rights, the organization focuses on advocating for workers and labor solidarity, he said.

“Fighting for any issue that affects other people is a labor issue, so fighting for reproductive rights, fighting for labor rights, fighting for queer rights are labor rights,” Heller said.

The students behind USAS left the national SDS organization to join the national USAS organization to further their efforts in increasing student employees wages, Heller said.

“We want to increase all waged student workers by $5, so if you are making a $11 now, you would be making $16,” he said.

In addition to increasing student employee’s wages, USAS intends to raise the resident assistant stipend from $500 to $2,000, as their current hourly pay is $1.50, Heller said.

After deciding to become USAS, members of SDS met with national USAS organizers, attended national calls and workshops leading them to realizing how beneficial it would be to work with USAS, Heller said.

SDS chose to join with USAS because the national USAS organization offers resources and funding which can be used toward their current campaign of increasing student employees wages and future campaigns, he said.

One of these resources includes USAS chapters from each university coming together once a month for a virtual call to discuss current and future plans amongst each other, Heller said.

“[The chapters] get together and, you know, brainstorm and really help each other out,” Heller said. 

In addition to this, two of the members from USAS’ national organization will come to the university in the beginning of April to help the university’s chapter of USAS organize their new organization, he said.

“We’re trying to get as many [USAS national members] early as possible, as we [get] to come in and just really learn… the best tactic to organize,” he said. “like how to structure campaign, how to talk with the media, how to do outreach.”

Heller said now was the best time to become USAS since they are in the earlier stages of their campaign for student employees.

“They can give us the resources to lay a solid foundation, to learn to run the rest of the campaign successfully, and we had been discussing this since [the] beginning of [December],” he said.

The start of a new semester will also offer a fresh start and a seamless time transition with the least amount of confusion, he said.

USAS’ future plans include working with the Undergraduate Student Government to pass a resolution endorsing their campaign about a student employees wage increase and to build a coalition further pertaining to their campaign, Heller said.

“It’s to show that it’s not just a dozen people who want this but really it’s people like students across campus who really need this,” he said.

Heller said he wants students to know USAS will still have the same principles and individuals behind it as SDS – the only difference is their increase in resources.

“The legacy of SDS will live on in USAS and at our core we are still the same hardworking group of people that we’ve always been,” he said. “Now we’re going to be able to fight a bit more harder.”

Adriana Gasiewski is a beat reporter. Contact her at [email protected].