Isaacson is a fourth-year international development
studies student and member of the Environmental Coalition. Call the
EC office at 206-4438 with questions. Â
By Kirsten Isaacson
Let’s look at the daily actions of an unsuspecting Bruin
and how he connects to the world beyond UCLA. Joe Bruin rises from
the top bunk in his closet-for-a-dorm-room and tries hard not to
wake up his other two roommates as he stumbles over the remnants of
a pizza fiasco. He heads off to the bathroom for his zit-popping
ritual and then transitions into dental hygiene mode.
Giving one of those “waz up” head nods to the
custodian cleaning the showers, Joe Bruin doesn’t realize
that the gentleman in the blue striped uniform just went through
wage negotiations. He and his union had to fight tooth and nail to
get a 5 percent raise, while top executive raises for 1999 were
18.5 percent.
After barely remembering his keys, Joe Bruin heads down the
stairs to swipe his card at his favorite cafeteria with the smiling
woman up front, and then he visits the omelet man. What Joe
doesn’t notice is the cafeteria supervisor who intimidates
the employees in order to prevent them from joining the union.
Without organizing together and empowering themselves, the
cafeteria workers, like so many other positions on campus, remain
temporary employees with poor wages, no benefits and little job
security.
Scurrying down the hill and then up the steps of Bruin Walk, Joe
Bruin slides into his padded chair in an enormous lecture hall. He
battles with the freezing air for a while and then drifts off to
sleep. Rustling papers and desks being tucked away break Joe Bruin
away from his dream of Saturday’s football game and he
decides he needs coffee to help him through his next lecture.
While standing in Kerckhoff’s enormous line and listening
to an outdated Alanis album, his mouth waters while looking at the
glass cases full of pastries. But the depths of Joe Bruin’s
pockets yield only enough change for a cup of coffee. The sweets
are bypassed and at the end of the day the unsold bagels, cookies,
etc. are placed into black trash bags and thrown away into
dumpsters. Perfectly good food thrown away, while students who feed
Westwood’s hungry through a program called Food Not Bombs
receive no donations from UCLA’s food excess.
Even Joe Bruin’s cup of coffee has issues behind it. The
administrators of UCLA Restaurants refuse to purchase coffee from
companies who provide a living wage to their coffee growers in
Central America, and subsequently they encourage the use of child
labor, harmful environmental practices, and rain forest
destruction.
Joe Bruin sips his coffee during yet another stimulating
lecture. He learns of a fascinating woman named Aung San Suu Kyi,
who although democratically elected by the people of Burma, is
under house arrest by the military and forbidden to assume her
office. There is hope for this small nation just as there was hope
for apartheid South Africa. Corporations and countries can bind
together, refusing to do business with a military dictatorship
until it is choked out of the land and the people are freed.
“Wow,” thinks Joe Bruin, “what an impressive
fight for democracy.”
Joe Bruin doesn’t realize it, but every check written as a
private donation to the UC Regents is supporting the military
dictatorship in Burma and helping to crush the Burmese people. The
UC Regents invest money in corporations that still practice within
the small country.
At long last classes are done for the day, and Joe Bruin guzzles
down a soda as he searches for a place to throw his newspaper away
(after all, he completed the crossword puzzle “”mdash; his favorite
part of the paper). Without too much effort, he locates a
blue-topped paper-recycling canister, but can’t seem to
locate a place to recycle his bottle. At this cutting-edge
university he has to wander 10 minutes to find a place to recycle
an aluminum can.
So at the end of Joe Bruin’s day, what have we all
learned? Our presence and actions on this campus are anything but
innocent. We must ensure that the world we are shaping is a world
we would want to live in, with wages to feed a family, benefits to
ensure medical attention, political freedoms and respect, a clean
environment, and, most of all, justice for all people.
As intelligent students, let’s recognize that our actions
have consequences and we need to act appropriately rather than
ignorantly.