MIAMI -- Seven students on Wednesday joined eight University of Miami workers who are hunger striking in connection with workers' demands to unionize.

On Wednesday, union members, U.M. workers and students marched up to the building that houses the university president's office.

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Protesters want the university to put more pressure on Unicco, the cleaning contractor responsible for about 430 workers at U.M., mostly groundskeepers and janitors. About 25 percent of the workers are now on strike, demanding that they be allowed to join the Service Employees International Union.

Clara Vargas and seven other workers are now on a hunger strike. Vargas has not eaten for eight days.

"We know that if we come in to work without the union, we're going to get fired," Vargas said in Spanish.

Seven students, who will also starve in protest, joined the hunger strikers on Wednesday.

"I'm a senior. I'm an honors student. I'm a student leader. I'm Greek. I'm a volunteer. I go out on the weekends to party, and I pull all-nighters. And now I'm starving. I am so hungry for change on this campus," said Tonya Aquino, a U.M. student who joined the hunger strike.

"We're very concerned and we are going to offer them any medical assistance that they need each morning at our student health center, and we're just very concerned about their health and safety," said Pat Whitley, U.M.'s vice president of student affairs.

The workers have been on strike for six weeks. So far, they have received a 25 percent wage increase from U.M., plus benefits.

"U.M. can't tell them what to do, and U.M. has every power to make this change. It's in our president's hands. It's in our trustees' hands. They need to come out, speak up for the workers of our U.M. family," Aquino said.

A Unicco official said the company has 25,000 workers across the country, 9,000 of whom belong to a union. The official said the company does not mind if U.M. workers join a union; it just wants them to vote on it. The union said that is clearly not the case.