Harvard Hullabaloo Halted
New Committee to be Appointed
BY VIVEK BHARATHAN

A sit-in by students at Harvard University’s Massachusetts Hall has ended with the students proclaiming victory. The sit-in, which began when 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement silently stormed Massachusetts Hall on April 18, lasted for three weeks, ending peacefully on May 8.

(photo courtesy Dan O'Sullivan)

Students demanded that the University start paying all of its employees, whether directly employed or hired through outside contractors, at least $10.25, the living wage approved in an ordinance by the city of Cambridge in 1999. According to PSLM, some employees, such as directly-hired janitors, are paid $7.50 an hour and are forced to take up other jobs to support their families, in some cases working up to 80 hours a week.
Drawing widespread support from within and without the University, the sit-in was endorsed by 200 members of the Harvard faculty, 66 faculty members from other colleges and universities, 25 labor unions, and various prominent individuals, including both senators from Massachusetts, Democrats John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, as well as John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. 
A living wage has been explored by the University. In 1999, Harvard President Neil Rudenstine appointed the Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies. The committee recommended against the living wage, instead recommending five expansions of already existing programs. These programs included expanding Harvard’s Bridge to Learning and Literacy, designed to help employees further their careers through education, to provide subsidized health insurance for all regular service employees and decline to contract with companies not offering health care to their workers, and finally to establish guidelines regarding companies with which the University contracts out.
A major point of contention between the University and PSLM is exactly how many workers earn below the living wage. Harvard says that 403 of its 13,500 regular employees earn less than $10.25 per hour. PSLM claims that in the ad hoc committee’s own findings there are 1,179 such employees, but that the university excluded the majority of these from its “regular employees” because they do not work full time.

According to PSLM, many of the sub-contracted positions on campus had been filled by unionized workers until recently, when the University outsourced a number of services, and these positions were filled with non-unionized workers. PSLM also says that the University’s subsidized health insurance is only provided to full-time direct employees, and not to part time workers. According to the ad hoc committee’s findings, part-time employees receive no health coverage.

The PSLM also takes issue with the University’s emphasis on the importance of its educational program. While the PSLM applauds the program itself, it states that it should not be considered a substitute for the living wage. The PSLM states, “No amount of ESL training or computer literacy will eliminate the ‘poverty wages’ that are currently being paid to at least 1,179 workers at Harvard.”
After the findings of the ad-hoc committee in 1999, the matter of the living wage was closed. According to PSLM, its members met with President Rudenstine several times and were told that the issue of the living wage would not be re-opened.

On May 8, after the sit-in ended, President Rudenstine announced that he was appointing a new committee, comprised of faculty members, “to consider the economic welfare and opportunities of lower-paid workers at Harvard.”