United DePaul, a group of undergraduate, graduate student workers and adjunct faculty members staged a strike Wednesday, May 1, across DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus to voice their demands for higher wages and health insurance.
The strike occurred on the Quad as the encampment in solidarity for Gaza entered its second day in the same location.
About 150 protestors participating in the strike convened towards the Seminary Avenue entrance of the Quad, carrying signs with messages such as “union strong” that also encouraged fellow students to not cross their picket line, urging them to not attend classes or shifts.
John Gould, United DePaul organizer and graduate student, presented opening remarks, stating the group’s solidarity with the encampment and the two groups’ intersecting interests.
Following Gould’s remarks, Nitaawe Banks, a DePaul graduate student, took the microphone.
Banks reiterated the similar interests between the encampment’s mission and United DePaul’s demands that the University divest from Israel and instead invest in its students.
United DePaul’s demands also include an end to the “condom ban,” which doesn’t allow for contraceptives to be distributed on campus.
“(The condom ban) is ridiculously unsafe for our student population,” Banks said.
Over the microphone, Banks also called upon the university to give attention to the “many issues on campus.”
“They don’t listen to us, they don’t care about us, ” Banks said. “We’re gonna make them care about us.… That’s why we’re here.”
Many also pointed out DePaul’s commitment to Vincentian values as a reason for the administration to support unionization efforts.
“(DePaul) loves to talk about their Vincentian (expletive) values, but they don’t practice that,” Banks said.
The protestors increased in numbers as the speeches continued.
Led by Gould and other organizers, the group traveled down Belden Avenue.
Kaity Gallagher is a graduate worker at the Egan Office at DePaul. She said that working at the center has been a great experience and that she “wants this for other people” who are student workers at DePaul.
Simón Rafet, a DePaul junior, joins others on DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus the morning of Wednesday, May 1, 2024, to strike with United DePaul. The organization is a unionization campaign at the university fighting for better working conditions. The strikers formed picket lines outside DePaul’s campus buildings in Lincoln Park and called for change.
Student workers and other protestors march in solidarity with United DePaul outside DePaul University’s Arts & Letters Hall in Lincoln Park on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Among other demands, the group is calling for better wages and healthcare for workers of the university.
Protesters with United DePaul march outside DePaul University’s Schmitt Academic Center in Lincoln Park on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. “Money for our education not for the occupation,” was among one of the group’s chants.
Gallagher has always been interested in workers’ rights and “jumped for joy” when Gould mentioned that United DePaul was “organizing for real this time.”
Organizers led chants over megaphones such as “Get up, get down, Chicago is a union town.” Many students carried homemade signs with slogans such as “Rent is due” and “Here, we organize.”
Groups dispersed in front of various campus buildings, with protestors marching around Arts and Letters, the Levan Center and both sides of the Student Center, each shouting chants.
Faculty also came to show their support for the strike, such as Marcy Dinius, a DePaul English professor.
Dinius is a tenured faculty member and the chair of DePaul’s American Association of University Professors chapter.
“For those who can, onwards my friends,” Dinius said before the marching began.
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