[28] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Harvard Living Wage information and snide remarks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher D. Beland)
Thu Apr 19 12:11:39 2001
Message-Id: <200104191604.MAA12466@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU, alsmith@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 12:04:29 -0400
From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
Resent-From: jhawk@MIT.EDU
Resent-To: mit-talk-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
I really don't understand why people are willing to spend the time
bitching about how they don't have enough information, but then turn
around and claim limited resources to care about such things. It
seems like less a sincere desire to know whether or not this is a
worthy cause and more an attempt to berate the self-proclaimed
supporters of the cause for their lack of justification, thus morally
justifying oneself for not caring in the first place.
Anyway, as a supporter of increased human compassion of all forms,
I've done the simplest possible digging and found lots of interesting
background, including those odd things you sun-deprived engineers call
"numbers."
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/implement.html proposes an
average $2/hr wage increase, plus health care, child care, more sick
and vacation time, plus supporting administration and oversight. This
incurs $4,400,000 in one-time costs and $12,588,000 ongoing costs.
Average $2/hr wage increase, plus health care, child care, more sick
and vacation time.
Additional key issues are named at
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/why.html, including:
To ensure that the university does not use subcontracting and
reclassification to cut wages and benefits as the Harvard Corporation
has agreed it should not Harvard must adopt a policy of maintaining
wage and benefit levels when jobs are outsourced or reclassified. Our
Implementation Report contains methods for assuring this which should
be adopted.
A bit of background:
In 1998, the Cambridge City Council began working toward a living
wage ordinance for all city employees. At the same time, Harvard
students, faculty members, and workers joined together to demand that
Harvard University, the largest employer in Cambridge, live up to
these standards. Today, over 1,000 Harvard workers are paid wages as
low as $6.50 per hour without benefits. This is a wage that puts a
parent with one child well below the federal poverty line, forcing
many to work at least 90 hour weeks in order to support
themselves. We insist that all direct and outsourced Harvard
employees be paid a wage of at least $10.25/hr -- the same living
wage paid by the City of Cambridge.
We are sitting in because administrators have not only failed to
improve wages and benefits, but have aggressively worked to slash
them as support for a living wage policy has grown. In the face of
opposition from unions, workers, faculty, and students, the
university has outsourced hundreds of jobs to firms which pay
poverty-level wages and benefits. The university claims that it has
in fact worked to extend benefit packages to more workers through the
report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies; but in fact,
only 19 workers have received benefits through this report, because
Harvard offered the packages for exorbitant monthly fees-as much as
$100 to $200 per month. Many workers say that they were never even
notified of their new access to benefits.
Support for a living wage at Harvard extends far beyond the
university's gates: dozens of community, religious, and labor
organizations have endorsed the Campaign or taken part in
demonstrations. The Cambridge City Council has twice passed
resolutions or orders calling on Harvard to implement a living wage
policy. Finally, a wide array of intellectuals, journalists, labor
and civil rights leaders, activists, and celebrities have endorsed
our campaign and spoken for it, including actor Matt Damon, NAACP
Chairman Julian Bond, linguist Noam Chomsky, writer Barbara
Ehrenreich, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and historian Howard Zinn. For these
reasons, we are sitting in to demand that all Harvard workers,
whether directly employed or hired through outside firms, must be
paid a living wage of at least $10.25 per hour, adjusted annually to
inflation, and with basic health benefits.
-- http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/pressrelease.html
HOW WIDESPREAD IS LOW-WAGE LABOR ON CAMPUS?
Based on information gathered from the administration, campus unions,
and individual workers, we estimate that there are currently 1000 to
2000 people working on this campus who are paid less than $10.25 per
hour plus benefits. These workers fall into three categories:
1.Directly-hired, unionized "regular" employees. As of May, 2000,
Harvard paid 372 directly-hired "regular" employees less than $10
per hour (the living wage standard at the time data were
collected).
2.Casual employees. As of March, 1999, approximately 650 so-called
"casual" employees earned less than $10 per hour. Casual
employees work at Harvard part-time and on a temporary basis;
although they are directly-hired, they are ineligible for union
membership, typically receive no benefits, enjoy no job security,
and are often inadequately paid.
3.Subcontracted employees. Harvard establishes contracts with
nearly 9000 firms annually, and maintains ongoing relationships
with roughly 180 firms. Like casual workers, subcontracted
employees are vulnerable to numerous forms of exploitation. The
Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies estimated that in May,
2000, 500 subcontracted workers in custodial, dining, parking,
and security jobs were paid less than $10 per hour (the living
wage standard at the time data were collected). By the best
estimates of the Living Wage Campaign, the Ad Hoc Committee?s
figure may actually be low.
CAN HARVARD AFFORD TO PAY A LIVING WAGE?
Yes. By very liberal estimates, it would cost Harvard $10 million per
year to implement a living wage policy. Although significant in
absolute terms, this sum amounts to just one-half of one percent of
the university?s annual budget. Looked at another way, it is less
than one-half of one percent of the annual interest on Harvard?s
endowment. Looked at still another way, it exactly equals the
compensation Harvard paid a single fund manager in 1998.
IF HARVARD IMPLEMENTS A LIVING WAGE, WILL WORKERS BE FIRED?
There is no reason to think so. The jobs that underpaid workers
perform on this campus are ones that need to be done: delivering
mail, cooking, working in libraries, building, cleaning, and so
on. Harvard can not fire these workers without seriously impairing
its own ability to function. Unlike a fast food chain, which has
substantial freedom to downsize and close individual branches,
Harvard can not simply eliminate the Biology department, close down
Adams house, or cut off the meal plan.
Rather than threaten jobs, a living wage would actually increase job
security at Harvard. Currently, the university routinely threatens to
fire decently-paid workers and replace them with outsourced workers
whom it can pay less. Because a living wage policy establishes the
same wage floor for outsourced and directly-hired workers, it would
undercut this threat, thereby defending the jobs of thousands of
workers.
Finally, it should be noted that Harvard has in the past proven that
it can dramatically increase wages without laying people off. Since
its establishment in 1988, the Harvard Union of Clerical and
Technical Workers has won a 77% increase in its members' wages. No
one has been fired.
-- http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/factsheet.html
More information is available at:
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/portal.html
And so help you, if you start a paragraph with, "I haven't read the
web site, but I'd like to make a misguided comment anyway," I'll
staple-gun you to Stacey Blau and throw you both in the river.
The web site does have more information on the administration's
stance, including mention of the report of the committee which the
protesters are upset about. (RSSC, anyone? A lot of useful stuff for
MIT activists can be learned from the tactics being used in this
protest. Go ask the Harvard people how they get people all riled up;
you'll learn something about how to combat the all-pervasive apathy
jhawk has been emitting en masse. After all, the wage supposedly
increase hurts, not helps the hundreds of Harvard students supporting
it -- or does it?)
Note that the issue of living wage is one that extends to national
politics. This seems to make it relevant to all MIT students who care
about such larger pressing social issues. This protest has also
attracted the attention of the national media, as noted by the web
site I cited previously. But we'd of course rather keep our heads in
the sand. Perhaps the more liberally-educated faculty would agree
that participation in current social affairs is a vital part of one's
college education? Perhaps MIT should make its students fulfill an
hour-a-week community participation requirement in the terms they're
not taking PE classes. They could get exercise walking to meetings
or sporting signs or whatever. 8P
Beland
Who hit M-x ispell-buffer because Wally is devilishly cute when he
bitches about the abuse of the English Language, even though he pisses
people off when he does it.
===============================================================
Christopher Beland - http://web.mit.edu/beland/www/contact.html
MIT STS/Course 6 (EECS) - MIT Athena User Interface Project
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