The architecture faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design has expressed its “unequivocal support” for striking workers on the campus. The strike, now approaching two weeks in duration, is being carried out by 60 movers, custodians, and ground service staff, represented by the Teamsters union.

“We express our unequivocal support for the custodians, groundskeepers, and movers currently on strike for a fair, decent wage at RISD,” a statement by the architecture department reads. “As educators and practitioners, we are acutely aware that the maintenance of our physical spaces is vital to the everyday functioning of our institution and is also the physical manifestation of our collective value systems. We firmly believe that RISD must fairly compensate and support the people whose tireless labor makes our work fundamentally possible. Their labor must be valued, recognized, and celebrated.”

“When employers use standards of minimum rather than standards of care, today’s living wage is tomorrow’s living precarity,” the statement adds. “According to our shared 2030 mission statement, it is beholden on RISD not to simply teach social equity and inclusion, but to practice it.”

According to reporting by The Boston Globe, the union has been negotiating wages and health benefits since June. Union representatives claim that RISD is not offering the workers a “living wage,” while the RISD claims the union’s offer is not “fiscally responsible.”

“We need a raise because life today, everything is too expensive and they only pay $15.65 an hour,” one RISD employee told the paper. “I’ve worked here for 10 years, and that’s how much they pay me. I have bills to pay and I have a house to pay [for] and I have a family. We need to support the family.”

Since the strike began, union representatives and RISD students have populated the campus with “art strike” flyers, among other actions, according to the Boston Globe. Union members have not impeded access to RISD buildings, however.

The paper also reports the story of one RISD graduate student in industrial design, who claims that an open email she authored to the RISD President questioning the institution’s transparency about the matter was “censored/withheld by the RISD administration.”

After pressing ‘send’ on the email to the entire student body, the student claims the email was “pending approval by a RISD moderator,” the paper reports. The student also claims a member of the school’s student affairs staff told her that there was concern such messages could be “counted as RISD approves this message.” The student subsequently distributed paper copies of her email and published a public version online.

News of the strike comes weeks after RISD announced its withdrawal from the U.S. News & World Report's Best College rankings, a move that joins more institutions that are turning away from the highly-criticized process.