Laboring away
When Levin was just 10 years old, her father took her out of school for the day and the two drove from their New Jersey home down to Washington to participate in a demonstration against the Persian Gulf War. This was her "first real introduction to social resistance," but she has remained critical of government policy and has fought to bring about social change.
Her main interest is labor activism. "I really got into doing labor organizing because it's a huge force of social change," she said. "It's really important to begin with the people who are being most exploited, who, for the most part, are low-wage workers in this country."
Levin has spent her past three summers working on several different labor organizing campaigns. In 1999, she participated in Union Summer, which is a program designed to get students involved in labor activism. The students were working for a union that had organized a class action law suit against Tyson Chicken, a large southern poultry company that was violating labor laws. She and seven other students traveled to several states in the South and visited non-union poultry plants where workers were not being paid the proper wage. The students' main rile was to make workers aware of the labor law and explain to them that there rights were being violated.
"There was a lot of hostility towards us on the part of the company," said Levin. "We would get the cops called on us a lot. It was unusual for anybody to challenge such a big corporation." The efforts of Levin's group paid off. Tyson Chicken was forced to change some of its policies because the workers were made aware of their rights. The lawsuit is ongoing, but the workers are slowly getting their money back. Levin spent the following summer in Newark, N.J., where she was involved in the first-ever state campaign to organize home nurses who work with the elderly.
Last summer, Levin worked for Justice for Janitors, a campaign for higher wages and better working conditions for New York City's janitors. Levin was on a team of 25 interns, which had a great amount of control in terms of their tactics for labor organizing. They did street theater and held drum-ins outside of office building. Sometimes they would march into corporate office buildings and drop banners from the top of the building which read: "Janitors deserve a living wage." These "pranks" were an effort to draw media attention. The campaign was a success. By the end of the summer, 500 new janitors had formed a union and, as a result, were able to bargain for higher wages and better working conditions.
Levin has brought her spirit of social activism to the College. Over spring break, she led an outreach trip to Cuba. She and 20 other students were chosen to go on a delegation and learn more about the country. The students worked with a Cuban organization called Witness for Peace, which arranged meetings for the students with various doctors, farmers, teachers, economists and academics in Cuba.
"I have a lot of respect for the social care that the Cuban society operates on," said Levin. "Everyone's healthcare, food and education is guaranteed to them. There really is a sense that everyone will have their basic needs taken care of even though it is a really poor country."
"It was one of the most important educational and personal experiences in my life," said Levin of her trip to Cuba. "I had already been fiercely against the embargo. I felt it was really wrong to deprive a country of food and medicine just because you don't approve of their government."
Knowledge is power
Levin, an English major who wrote a thesis on George Orwell, first got involved in social activism at the College in her freshman year, when she participated in a campaign to make the College pass an anti-sweatshop code of conduct. The ASAP's efforts led the student government to pass a resolution dictating that the College will not do business with companies that do not adhere to acceptable working standards. The campaign continued for another year, and the administration eventually passed the resolution in the fall of 2001.
"We wanted to make it a much more transparent process in terms of where Amherst was doing business," said Levin. "[We wanted] to see where there were breeches in Amherst's commitment to social responsibility."
Next year, Levin will be in New York, either teaching in the public schools or working for an environmental health program that deals with health issues of workers who have been exposed to toxins and other hazardous materials on the job. Levin may want to become a labor lawyer because, as she explained, "labor law is designed to benefit companies much more than workers. That cause needs people who can help the workers apply labor law."
"I don't think it matters whether you're a lawyer, a doctor or a writer," added Levin. "What matters is that you use your work to push society to a more equitable and just direction."