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Alvin Chow

On day seven of the SLAC hunger strike, which members have launched to protest the University’s living wage, activists converse in their White Plaza encampment.

In their third meeting in as many days, five representatives of the Stanford Labor Action Coalition (SLAC) sat down Wednesday afternoon for two hours with administrators including Dean of Students Maureen Powers and Human Resources Director Diane Peck to argue about the University’s living wage policy.

Director of University Communications Alan Acosta called the meeting “a productive discussion about some of the issues.”

SLAC spokesperson Matt Seriff-Cullick ‘08 said that University administrators presented group representatives with counter-proposals to points in the “code of conduct” document that SLAC introduced at Tuesday’s meeting.

The University said in a statement that the document “went far beyond the scope of [...] discussions appropriate between SLAC and the University.” SLAC refers to these proposals as “imperatives” or “demands,” while the University calls them “suggestions.”

Seriff-Cullick said that SLAC made clear in its written materials that a discussion of the living wage would necessitate discussion of some wider, related issues.

“I think that we’ve been clear in everything that we’ve ever communicated to the president that the living wage is not an isolated issue,” he said. “Every time we’ve delivered something to them we always mention a lot more things than the living wage campaign.”

Acosta said that it was issues mentioned in the “code of conduct” not directly associated with the living wage that exceeded the scope of the discussion.

“They’re free to characterize this however they want,” he said, “but for us the discussion was primarily about the living wage.”

Both sides said that there will be additional discussions.

Twelve people continue to fast in what is now the eighth day of a hunger strike. Seriff-Cullick said that the ongoing fast has added to the urgency of the discussions.

“I think they’re trying to convince us that the fast isn’t what’s bringing them to the table,” he said. “Part of the reason for that is that the fast is bringing a lot more attention [...] to the issues than other things have.”

Acosta said that the fast has had no effect on the ongoing meetings with SLAC.

“We’ve said that we will meet with them,” he said. “President Hennessy has said that he is willing to meet with them and so he has urged them to stop the fast. We’re concerned about the students’ health.”