Repeated chants of "People over profit" and "How much greed do you need?" echoed from the steps of Collis on Tuesday afternoon as approximately 100 students, staff and community members protested the recent cuts to healthcare benefits for the College's staff. As an effort to bridge the $100 million budget gap, employees' health care plans were reduced by $15 million, costing workers up to $4,000 a year, The Dartmouth previously reported.
The rally, organized by Dartmouth Students Stand with Staff, featured student speakers as well as Vermont State Rep. Susan Hatch-Davis, D/P-Orange, Vermont Worker's Center Director James Haslam and New Hampshire State Rep. Andrew White, D-Grafton.
Protesters held signs that read "Dartmouth Inc.," "What is the return on our ethical profile?" and "People are not disposable."
Students Stand with Staff co-founder Phoebe Gardener '11, who organized the rally, began the event by listing the cuts to workers' benefits at the College amidst the recent $100 million budget reduction. Since the recession, 100 employees at Dartmouth have been laid off, while others received salary cuts or were given early retirement plans, she said.
"Premiums have increased [for the staff]," Gardener said. "Co-pays have doubled, and this was all done under a president who has promoted health care delivery science."
The College did not dramatically cut health care benefits, and only introduced "deductibles and slight increases in co-pays and co-insurance," according a statement the College released Tuesday.
"In some instances the cost may have gone up, but the care provisions have not," the statement said.
Gardener shared an anonymous testimony from a member of Dartmouth's staff, who was "hesitant to openly criticize," she said. The employee, whose wife is disabled, supports a family of four using only his own income. Since the initiation of the new health plan in January 2011, treatment costs for his wife's health problems have totaled $3,200 out of pocket, Gardener said.
"I will have no way to pay for it," Gardener read from the employee's testimony.
In her speech, Gardener criticized the way the College's budget is allocated. She said that despite the budget crisis, the College plans on investing $35 million in the Center for Health Care Delivery Science and approximately $400,000 in an "unneeded" new cafe in Baker-Berry Library, she said.
"The fact that these are hard times' is not an excuse," Gardener said.
Nina Rojas '13, another speaker at the event, said the health care benefit cuts reveal the corporate-oriented nature of the College.
"It's not ethically right it's not social justice to take away $15 million from people who make this place Dartmouth," Rojas said.
Student speaker Daniel Leder '14 criticized College President Jim Yong Kim for supporting the cuts, despite Kim's expressed concern for human rights issues.
"[Kim] always quotes [former College President John Sloan Dickey] Make the world's troubles you own troubles,'" Leder said. "What about making Dartmouth's troubles your own troubles?"
Eli Lichtenstein '13, another student speaker, criticized the Dartmouth community for contributing to "good" causes by donating to the victims of the Haiti earthquake and the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but ignoring the "suffering around our corners."
Speakers from the community commended the Dartmouth students participating in the rally, and described the regional and national context of the movement in support of labor rights.
Hatch-Davis, a Vermont State Employees Association representative, criticized the Vermont state government for its anti-union movements, while Haslam said health care is a universal right.
All three community members spoke of their disapproval for the government's backing of big businesses at the expense of the middle class.
"[The government] is turning middle-class workers into slaves for the ultra-rich," Davis said.
Employee participation in the College's early retirement program was "strictly voluntary," according to the College's statement. Salaries were not reduced during the budget crisis, but in some instances hours were reduced, the statement said.
The rally followed a broadcast in Collis 101 of a national teach-in regarding "austerity, debt, corporate greed," hosted by civil rights activist Cornel West and City University of New York political science professor Frances Piven.
"The teach-in's goals related directly to the goals of the rally by looking at class dominance and inequality," Gardener said.
Students who attended the rally said in interviews with The Dartmouth that the event brought up important issues at the College.
"It think it was a matter of time before this happened," Dartmouth Global Leadership Program co-director Ariana Almas '11 said. "No outside input was considered when these [health care cuts] were made."
Gardener, who publicized the event using posters, flyers and emails, said she was pleased by the turnout, especially given the rainy weather.
"The crowd was so energetic," Gardener said. "I'm glad we were really able to reach out to a lot of people."
