Randy Marcum wears most of his expression in the creases above his eyes.

When he speaks, it is with a careful, unassuming patience. When asked about the Miami University workers' strike in 2003, which he led as the president of the Local 209 chapter of AFSCME, his brow narrows and the lines of his face harden.

"The biggest disappointment was the lack of concern from the board of trustees, from Garland," he said. "We represent the lowest paid employees, people who don't make enough to live on, and their lack of concern was what disappointed me a lot more than the outcome."

Students who were around in the fall of 2003 undoubtedly remember when the union that represents the men and women who work in Miami's residence halls, dining halls, grounds and physical facilities went on strike over the issue of low wages.

With some of its members on food stamps and other types of government assistance, the union argued that the university was paying poverty-level wages and that it deserved better than the 4.25 percent starting wage increase offered in the contract. The university countered that it offered a fair market-level wage and refused to budge. After holding out for several weeks, the union voted to accept Miami's offer.

"Some of it was a matter of a lot of the members who simply couldn't afford to strike," Marcum said. "They make so little money, they can't afford to not be working."

Two years later, tension surrounding the issue of a living wage still runs high. According to Marcum, the union has not forgotten the treatment it encountered from the university during the negotiations and strike.

"It's frustrating," he said. "Miami has some of the best dining halls and residence halls of any college in the country, but the people who actually maintain those facilities, who work in them day in and day out, don't see any reward for what they do."

Naturally, the administration has a different perspective.

Richard Little, director of university communications, pointed to the health care and other benefits that all employees enjoy.

"A strike is not something you're ever pleased with," he said. "We thought we had an agreement. It seemed like the union leadership got a hold of the deal and convinced their members to go on strike when it wasn't really in their best interests."

Little maintained that Miami has always paid a fair wage, despite that before the strike a state fact-finder's report recommended a 25 percent starting wage increase. He also expressed concerns with the legitimacy of the report.

However, an advisory committee sponsored by Miami found that the school was paying between 5-15 percent below the market standard for the lowest paid jobs. In March 2004, just five months after the dispute with the union, Miami implemented a wage adjustment of 8-20 percent.

Director of Latin American Studies, Dan La Botz, who supported the strike in 2003, questioned the logic of this.

"If what Miami was offering during the strike was so fair then that wage raise doesn't make much sense," La Botz said. "Was the situation so significantly different five months later or did the administration simply not want to be seen as losing to the union?" According to Little, the raise was a standard market adjustment.

Negotiations for a new union contract, which expires July 1, 2006, could begin as early as February, and Marcum believes that the union stands on firmer ground than in 2003. "The strike was a success in opening people's eyes," he said. "As far as support from the students and faculty, I couldn't have been more amazed. One of our goals was to educate the community and the students on how things work, and I think we'll see that support again."

That support is tangible in Miami students Justin Katko and Dylan Daney, two members of Students for Staff, an organization that advocates a blanket living wage policy similar to the type implemented by Harvard and Yale universities.

For Katko, the most frustrating part of his involvement with the strike of 2003 was the atmosphere of antagonism the conflict fostered.

"As a member of the Fair Labor Coalition, I was in a meeting with the board of trustees, where Richard T. Farmer called us 'union pawns,'" Katko said. "It's that idea that it's a battle, it's a war that we want to avoid."

Students for Staff is a different organization entirely, according to Daney.

"We're not some Marxist group or anything," he said. "The point behind Students for Staff is that we are broad-based ideologically."

Their goal in the upcoming negotiations is to bring together students, workers, faculty and the administration in order to open a dialogue on the issue of a living wage, which the group defines as "the income required for a person working a 40-hour week to afford a basic standard of living - including housing, food, utilities, transportation and health care."

The attitude of all parties is clearly to avoid the hostility and rancor of 2003 in the debate over the new contract.

Carol Hauser, the director of human resources for Miami, said the road ahead will not be easy.

"Research shows that the effect of strikes on employee-union relationships lasts for at least eight years," Hauser said. "We don't want to walk into negotiations with an adversarial attitude, and I've been working with the union to avoid that."

Hauser and the union meet regularly to discuss issues of labor relations.

"I think there's a new and better understanding of each other since that time," said Little, referring to the strike. "Everyone's hopeful for a more genial outcome this time around."

Along with the other members of Students for Staff, Katko and Daney hope to be an instrumental part of that outcome. They are holding an open forum 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Great Room of MacMillan Hall, where they encourage workers, students, faculty and members of the administration to attend.

"What we're asking is not unreasonable," Daney said. "We want to begin a dialogue to find solutions, and we want the administration to be a part of that."

La Botz stresses that issue is not about abstract numbers and pay scales but rather about individuals.

"People have a hard time putting themselves in that position where you have to worry about paying rent, getting food, getting winter clothes," he said. "Growing up, almost every student at Miami had the choice of taking violin lessons or going to the orthodontist. In the end, that's what this is about. Why shouldn't these people be able to give their kids those same things?"