Virginia safety Joseph Williams is on a hunger strike for university workers

YAHOO.......Lose the bars at the bottom of every sports and news story. Its so hard to try and read a story with that bar bouncing around.

I always laugh when I read comments like "oh if they would've gone to college they wouldn't had to work those types of jobs" bwahahahaha!!! I graduated college 4 years ago with a bachelors and work at a call center making 12 bucks an hour. I make 750 after taxes and pay 800 in rent. the rest goes to student loans, food, gas, cable, etc. My friend knows this guy who came from India 6 years ago never stepped a foot in college and runs a million dollar company. NOT JOKING. College is an experience it doesn't guarantee anything.

In 1965 a guy could come out of high school get a job at the corner garage as a mechanic, have a wife and two kids (wife was a stay at home mom) and they could afford to buy a home
Gee I wonder what happened to that?
Now before you ladies go off the deep end....the point is about buying a home.

Someone define the LIVING WAGE that can work most everywhere. If you live in California, where a semi-decent ROOM will cost you $600 per month and a barely endurable 1 bedroom apartment will cost you $1200 per month, and taking into account NOTHING ELSE but this cost of rent, it would look something like this, in California. To NET $1200 per month, you have to make at least $1600 per month GROSS PAY. That's approximately $400 per week or $10.00 per hour for a 40 hour week, just to pay your RENT for a 1 bedroom apartment. The cost of gasoline is $4.00 per gallon, and if you have a 12 gallon tank, that's $48.00 per week or almost $200 per month. Few people make it around California, locally on a single tank of gas per week, but that would take another $266 per month GROSS PAY to let you NET the $200 for gas. Divide $266 by 4 weeks, that's $66, divided by 40 hours per week is another $1.66 per hour added to your $10.00 per hour for rent, now you're at $11.66 per hour for MINIMAL gas and rent for a month. Add $400 per month for food, and $100 per month for your phone and that is another $500 which will take another $666 GROSS PAY to NET the $500. Divide the $666 by 4 weeks, that's $166 per week, divided by 40 hours, is, $4.16. Add together the $11.66, per hour, for rent and gas, and the $4.16, per hour, needed for food and phone, and you are at $15.82 per hour.

It is a valid point but he should have left race out of it. I am white and cannot climb the ladder due to economic excess above me. I am hard working and intelligent but I did not graduate from a top college or do an internship at my Dad's firm. I don't need the same salary as the CEOs but should they really make 10,000 times more than the average worker?

This is a misguided young man who has bought into the class war and social justis lie that obama is passing off as fairness in the job market. He has bought the lie that a lawn mower should be paid a salary equal to that of a university president. Karl Marx expalined it as "Each according ability and to each according to his needs." This well meaning young man has decided to join a fight that is instigated by a ruthless group of organizers that will use young people who are gullable enough beieve this basic communist ideal, such as he and in the end throw them aside worse off than they were. Karl Marx refered to the youth of a nation who he used as his activists for the illusion of social justice as "Usefull idiots" Someone with a grasp on the economy and true history should warn this young man of the dangers and the millions of innocent lives that have been lost at the hands of socialism. I am sure the rewriten history being taught in schools by "progressive teachers" has been bastardized to the point that communism is an acceptable alternate to capitalism. What is a Social Thought major? and what is the employment outlook and payscale for those majoring in Social Thought ? or is this major a sounding board for socialist teachers who's mission is to endoctrinate young people with this poisonous thinking.

$7.25 goes a lot farther in Charlottesville than it does in San Francisco.

How about instead of raising their pay, they just lower the administration workers pay. Then maybe they can knock a few bucks off of college tuition too.

Only people getting ripped off here are the students.

"political and social thought major"....I am embarrassed for UVA for even offering this as a major. Is this like a poli-sci class without all of the "hard science"...... Do you get an "A" for having thoughts... It is ironic that he is protesting (in part) highly compensated state government employees...when it seems that the goal of this major is to eventually become a highly compensated government employee.

Children who grow up in difficult situations are better at seeing the big picture better than most adults can!

He is bright...and it is a well-deserved dialouge..But bringing "race" into his reasoning is baiting..I would like to ask this young man what his perceptions of the Foxconn employess in China are....Does he interpret that as a racial divide?...Perhaps because it is politically empowering for him now to make such distinctions based on race?...That seems to be the political momentum that the young, college educated black American espouses these days.

8 days is not 2 weeks

My advice to this young man.Don't waste too much of your precious time trying to make life fair.It's not and won't ever be despite your best efforts.

good luck...govt dont care about you..you will be gone and they will still be here..sad to say

2 games? Headline should read "Student" not football player.

For me it is encouraging but not "refreshing” It’s depressing to see students have to take up a struggle against the establishment that should be setting the role model for social responsibility at the University...More Power to this young man and his 18 comrades for fair wages... These young folks give me hope that the next generation won't be swallowed up by the social economic policies that are the root of so many problems in our culture today..
I have a feeling we will hear more from Mr. Joseph Williams in years to come...

With a degree like the one he's pursuing, this guy ought to get used to starving.

Joseph Williams, I applaud you for taking such a stand against what you believe to be injustice, regardless of how others may perceive it. It is qualities of sort that have produced the good in every nation and have benefited the populous. Education is much bigger than academics, it is an understanding of the elements of humanity and a promotion of the characteristics of equality and justice that must govern a nation. You are an exemplary leader.

how badly has the dollar been trashed that now $7.25/hr is worthy of a hunger strike?

This will make no difference.