As a frequent customer of the Subway restaurant located in the LaFortune Student Center, I have been extensively snubbed by the lack of the now infamous "five-dollar footlongs" deal along with the rest of you, the student body.
Widely publicized by firemen, construction workers and various other hardworking blue-collar Americans in Subway's long-running TV ad series, the deal has been so popular as to prompt a permanent installation in the Subway arsenal.
However, our Subway in LaFortune finds it unnecessary to offer such a deal, and rightfully so. The LaFun Subway has been ranked as high as third nationally in sales and consistently tops the regional charts. While the managers have every right to run a highly profitable business, and I congratulate them on doing so, I am opposed to the exploitation of students and therefore propose a student body boycott of the LaFortune Subway.
After contacting Subway on the matter, a representative informed me it would be a bad business decision if he were to implement the deal. Further questioning was fruitless. However, this is not about business. Rather, it is about the students.
A boycott may seem arbitrary given the price of textbooks in the current day, but consider a savings of roughly two dollars on every Subway footlong purchase: if a student purchases Subway once a week (I usually miss at least one dining hall meal per week) he or she will save over $50, or 16 percent of his or her total Flex points. Wouldn't this come in handy as the points dwindle around finals?
Hard money aside, it is also unacceptable for a Subway to exploit college-aged students simply because they know the students will never stop buying their product. Subway offers no such deal and simply wishes to capitalize off of a ravenously hungry student body which is given nothing greater than Burger King and Sbarro. If hardworking firemen and construction workers deserve footlongs for five dollars, why do young and financially struggling college students not deserve the same? Because our Flex points are pre-paid and we would spend them all anyway?
Join us in this fight. If you are not working with us, you are working against us. For the complete unabridged manifesto and more visit the Facebook group Fighting for Footlongs.
John Traub
Colin McNamara
James Hinckley
Andrew Baeckstrom
Dom Golab
sophomores
Stanford Hall
Feb. 12
