[768] in peace2
5/7 HARVARD SIT IN UPDATE
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Mon May 7 23:51:18 2001
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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 23:51:10 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
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5/7 HARVARD LIVING WAGE SIT-IN UPDATE
DAY 20
www.livingwagenow.com
Students are STILL sitting in for a living wage of $10.25/hr plus benefits
for all Harvard workers. Stop by Mass Hall, contact the administration,
and wear a button to show support. Other ways to help follow - updated
every day! -- and are essential to the success of this action.
**UPDATE**
* Yesterday, Howard Zinn spoke at noon and Senator Kerry spoke at 7:30,
bringing yet more vocal support to the Living Wage Campaign.
* 2 rallies were organized and travelled into Harvard Square, where the May
Fair carnival was taking place. Street theater was performed, and the
carnival-goers expressed much appreciation for the efforts of the
protesters.
* News coverage continues to grow: Today, listen to WBUR's nationally
syndicated talk show, The Connection, as well as All Things Considered on
NPR at 5. The Christian Science Monitor also published a supportive
oppinion piece today.
**TABLE OF CONTENTS**
1. Contact Information for Administrators AND CORPORATION!
2. Today's Events
3. Administration Response and Sample Letter
4. Ways to Help
5. Demands
6. Response to Rudenstine's "Facts and Fallacies about Employment at
Harvard"
**CONTACT**
The following administrators should be urged to negotiate with the
protesters and to grant a living wage. More information follows the events
for today.
The Harvard Corporation is the most powerful decision making body at
Harvard.
James R. Houghton, Corporation Member; phone: 607-974-8332
Herbert "Pug" Winokur, Jr, Corporation Member; phone: 203-861-6600
D. Ronald Daniel, Corporation Member; phone: 212-446-7000
Conrad Harper, Corporation Member; phone: 212-455-2000
Jeremy Knowles, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences; phone: 617-495-1566;
fax: 617-495-8208; email: jeremy_knowles@harvard.edu
Neil Rudenstine, President; phone: (617) 495-1502; fax:(617) 495-1502;
email: beverly_sullivan@harvard.edu
Harvey Fineberg, Provost; phone:(617) 496-5100; fax: (617) 496-4630; email:
harvey_fineberg@harvard.edu
Sally Zeckhauser, VP for Administration; phone: (617) 495-1512; fax: (617)
496-6109; email: sally_zeckhauser@harvard.edu
Harry Lewis, Dean of Harvard College, phone: 617-495-1555; fax:
617-496-8268; email: lewis@harvard.edu
Polly Price, Associate VP for Human Resources; phone: (617) 496-3930; fax:
(617) 495-8937; email: polly_price@harvard.edu
**TODAY'S EVENTS**
All events take place in front of Mass Hall.
ONGOING: Supporters continue to keep vigilance outside of Mass Hall to
prevent the removal of protestors and demand negotiations. Stop by for as
long as you can and picket or make banners and signs. The living wage sit-in
documentary will be shown when there are no other activities.
10AM: Civil Disobediance Training
Sponsored by SEIU 254, conducted by Lisa Fithian of the Ruckus Society.
NOON: Rally featuring the Living Wage Divas, singing songs like "10.25" and
the reading of worker testimonies.
1PM: Civil Disobediance Training
Sponsored by SEIU 254, conducted by Lisa Fithian of the Ruckus Society.
8PM: Vigil
ALL NIGHT: Tent City! Come and sleep out in support of a living wage!
Bring a tent or use one of ours.
**ADMINISTRATION RESPONSE** We learned on Thursday from the Harvard Gazette
that Rudenstine plans to form a committee to "examine issues relating to the
economic welfare and opportunities of lower-paid workers at Harvard."
Contrary to the Crimson's May 1 story, we did not receive word about the
creation of this committee until reading this article. At this point, no
formalized committee structure, timeline, decision making-power, nor
committee membership has been offered to the students staging the sit in.
We would appreciate any move by the Harvard administration in the direction
of a more concrete proposal, and we look forward to working with Harvard
officials in the future.
Faculty support continues to grow and has been expressed to the
administration as well as printed in a full page ad in the Boston Globe.
Additionally HERE workers at the business school have successfully resisted
reclassification that would have put them below a living wage.
From these developments, it has become clear that we must increasingly apply
pressure to the administration and to discuss the issue of a living wage in
good faith. We insist that the administrators grant the demands of their
students, faculty, alumni, and staff - the people who make up this
University. Please continue to contact them (information above) and demand
that they negotiate with the protestors. See www.livingwagenow.com and go
to "e-mails" for examples of letters that supporters have sent. Our demands
follow.
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear ,
I am writing to demand that Harvard grant a living wage. I urge you to pay
all of your employees - both direct and subcontracted -- a living wage of
$10.25/hr plus benefits. Harvard University would not be able to operate
without its workers. Currently, many of these workers live below the
poverty line, and must work outrageous hours in order to make ends meet.
This is blatantly unjust.
You must also honor the protesters' additional demands for fair working
condition both at home and abroad, and join the Workers' Rights Consortium.
Only by doing so will the University truly uphold the Code of Conduct that
it has already passed.
I ask that you negotiate with students who are currently taking action on
this issue. They are, in fact, pursuing what I can only assume are values
cherished by Harvard. They are thinking critically about issues of pressing
social concern and taking action on their principles.
Sincerely,
**YOU CAN HELP**
If you would like to perform or speak at an event, please contact
617-290-5802.
IF YOU HAVE
2 MINUTES:
* Contact administrators and insist that they negotiate with the protestors.
Contact info below.
10 MINUTES:
* Join us in front of Mass Hall during the day or late at night. Write
Rudenstine a postcard on an index card and drop it off at Mass Hall.
* Deliver food (esp. vegetarian or vegan) to protesters inside Mass Hall at
meal times. Contact: beach@fas.harvard.edu, or call 617-816-8394.
* Tell your friends, TFs, professors, parents, students, and alumni. Go to
office hours and make phone calls.
* Get support signs or BANNERS at the information table in front of Mass
Hall and hang them in your dorm windows.
30 MINUTES:
* Pick up leaflets and posters in front of Mass Hall. Poster the yard and
your houses. Leaflet your classes or in the Yard.
* Stop by the info table and become an outreach contact.
* Submit a letter to the editor that calls on Harvard to pay a living wage
and/or negotiate with the protesters. Find a story online or on one of the
tables at Mass Hall and write a very brief response to the outlet that
printed it. Letters should ideally be less than 150 words. Be sure to
include your name, address, and daytime and evening phone numbers so the
paper can confirm your authorship. You can submit by e-mail to either
letter@globe.com or letters@nytimes.com.
1-2 HOURS:
* Sign up for a night shift at the table to ensure the safety of the people
in tent city and the protesters in Mass Hall
A NIGHT:
* Join the tent city in front of Mass Hall. Sleep outside to show support.
STUDENTS:
* Make a banner and hang it from your window. Supplies in front of Mass
Hall.
* Contact any student group you belong to and ask the it to endorse the
campaign. Ask the members to come out to Mass. Hall to support the movement.
Have each member contact the administration.
NON-HARVARD STUDENTS:
Contact Iris: ihalpe01@tufts.edu
* Organize a solidarity action. Stand outside with a cell phone in front of
your student center and have people call the Harvard administration and
demand negotiations and a living wage (info above).
* Send a delegation to Harvard to sleep out and participate in our events.
Bring tents if you can, and get in touch with Iris for directions and more
info.
ALUMNI, PARENTS, AND DONORS:
Contact: Dania Palanker (palanke@ksg.harvard.edu) to be put in the
(anti)donor data-base.
* Contact the administration and tell them that you will not donate any
money until they negotiate with protesters or grant a living wage.
Alternatively, pledge to donate a certain amount of money once Harvard
grants a living wage. See www.livingwagenow.com.
* Sign up for your class listserve and send out a message asking classmates
to write the administration saying they won't donate until a living wage is
granted. Contact Dania so we know your class has been contacted.
How to do this: Send an e-mail to listproc@camail1.harvard.edu requesting
membership to your class list. On your e-mail, leave the subject category
blank and include a one line message saying: "subscribe HAA-HR19xx your
name" filling in xx and your name accordingly. For example: HAA-HR1997 Jane
Harvard.
PROFESSORS AND OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS:
Contact: tmccarth@fas.harvard.edu
* Write an op-ed. Contact: 617-596-8146, 617-256-5779 or stop by Mass Hall.
* Speak at a rally. Contact: 617-290-5802 or 617-645-0767 or stop by Mass
Hall.
* Teach a seminar inside Mass Hall. Express concern that students are
missing classes and enter Mass Hall to teach a seminar about your field,
especially as it relates to economic justice. Same contacts as for
speaking.
* Contact other professors and ask them to contact the administration and
participate in the other helpful activities above.
* Use the Living Wage Logo (found on the website: www.livingwagenow.com) as
your computer wallpaper.
WORKERS AND STAFF
Contact: Minsu: mlongiar@law.harvard.edu
* Use the Living Wage Logo (found on the website: www.livingwagenow.com) as
your wallpaper for your computer.
* Speak at a rally. Contact Amy: 617-290-5802.
* Wear a button while you are at Harvard. Pick one up at the information
table in front of Mass Hall
CONTACTS:
Endorsements: pslm@hcs.harvard.edu
Worker's Center/Worker Contact: Minsu: mlongiar@law.harvard.edu
Media:
* Paul: 617-256-5779, paullekas@yahoo.com
* Matthew: 867-3028 (beeper), mafeigin@hotmail.com
* Emilou: 596-8146, maclean@fas.harvard.edu
Graduate School Organizing: Ricken: patelri@ksg.harvard.edu
Law School Organizing: Michelle: myau@law.harvard.edu
How else to help: Ben: stoll@fas.harvard.edu; 617-834-5824
E-MAIL: If you or someone you know are not receiving a daily update and
would like to be, contact jwagner@fas.harvard.edu or pslm@hcs.harvard.edu
**DEMANDS**
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. Complete
implementation of such a living wage policy requires three other simple
steps:
* 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 board must be created, not appointed by the administration, to oversee
implementation of the living wage policy. The board should have binding
policy-making power to enforce the policy, and should consist of workers,
union representatives, faculty, members of PSLM, and an administrator.
* Harvard relies on the labor of workers both on campus and off, and both
must be covered by the university's living wage policy. Workers in
factories that produce Harvard goods must therefore be assured a living wage
for their community; indeed, Harvard has already agreed to a Code of Conduct
which contains a commitment to this very idea. In order to determine
whether factories are complying with Harvard's Code, however, the university
must join the Worker Rights Consortium, the only independent
factory monitoring group which satisfies the Code's guidelines.
**RESPONSE TO RUDENSTINE'S "FACTS AND FALLACIES ABOUT EMPLOYMENT AT
HARVARD"**
On April 27th, the Office of the President of Harvard University released a
document, published in the Harvard University Gazette and sent out to the
entire University as a mass e-mail, that aimed to refute alleged claims of
the Living Wage Campaign. The document, we feel, represented an attempt to
mislead the Harvard community on the facts concerning employment on the
University campus. The document used deceptively narrow definitions to
generate the impression that the problem of 'poverty wages' at Harvard is a
lot less serious than it actually is. The Living Wage Campaign maintains
that at any given time, at least 1,179 Harvard workers earn less than $10.25
per hour and that many of these workers - and indeed many more at Harvard -
continue to lack basic benefits such as health insurance. In addition, the
document failed to outline any actual reason of why the Harvard
administration should not provide a 'living wage' and benefits to its
workers.
The Administration claims: "403 of Harvard's 13,500 regular employees earn
less than $10.25 an hour in wages."
· Technically, this is correct. However, it creates a misleading impression
that there are only 403 workers on the Harvard campus that earn less than a
'living wage.' Data published in the University's own Ad-Hoc Committee on
Employment Policies indicates that there are at least 1,179 such workers. In
defining "regular employees", the administration has excluded part-time
Harvard employees, on-campus employees of contractors, and its casual
workforce.
SURVEY OF LOW-WAGE EMPLOYMENT AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Type of Worker: Regular (Direct) Harvard Employees
Hours Worked: Full-Time
Workers Earning Less Than $10/hr (Dec. '99) 139**
Min. Verified Wage: $8.05
Type of Worker: Limited
Hours Worked: Part-Time
Workers Earning Less Than $10/hr: 233**
Min. Verified Wage: $8.05
Type of Worker: Employees of Contractors (e.g. Sodexho Marriott)
Hours Worked: Full-Time
Workers Earning Less Than $10/hr: 203**
Min. Verified Wage: Unsure
Type of Worker: Limited
Hours Worked: Part-Time
# Earning less than $10/hr: 276**
Min. Verified Wage: $7.00***
Type of Worker: Casual Harvard Employees
Hours Worked: Limited (Part-Time)
# Earning less than $10/hr: 328**
Min. Verified Wage: $6.50*
TOTAL Earning less than $10/hr: 1179**
Min. Verified Wage: $6.50*
* - Refers to data from the year 2000.
** - Estimates compiled by the Ad-Hoc Committee on Employment Policies. For
reasons of selection bias (detailed at http://www.livingwagenow.com), the
numbers cited above most likely represent an under-estimate of the number of
workers at Harvard not earning a living wage.
*** - Data collected from worker interviews.
· Many of the sub-contracted positions that now pay the lowest wages on the
Harvard campus had, until recently, been filled with unionized workers
directly hired through the University. As the University has outsourced an
increasing number of its services, however, unionized workers have been
replaced by non-unionized workers and workers' wages have plummeted
accordingly. Over the past two years, the university has replaced its
unionized guards, who used to make a 'living wage,' with non-unionized
guards from a subcontracting firm (S.S.I.), who make less than a 'living
wage.' This policy has cut the guards' union from over 180 workers to 19.
The Administration claims: "The minimum starting [wage] of a residential
dining service worker employed by Harvard is currently $10.85 per hour and
after 2 years of service the per-hour rate is $12.35."
· Again, a technically correct statement that deliberately creates a
misleading impression through the selective use of language. The minimum
starting wage for a non-residential dining service worker employed by
Harvard is $8.05 per hour. The minimum starting wage for a non-residential
dining service worker at Harvard is currently at most $7.00 per hour -
people working in this job previously earned substantially higher wages
under direct Harvard employment prior to outsourcing by the University.
The Administration claims: "No full-time employee at Harvard earns less than
$10.25 an hour in total compensation."
· At least 342 full-time employees at Harvard earn a wage that is below
$10.25 an hour and many employees at Harvard lack basic benefits such as
health insurance. While University-subsidized health insurance is provided
to full-time direct Harvard employees, those who work half time or less do
not receive such benefits. The Ad-Hoc Committee estimates that 220 of
Harvard's casual workforce are without health insurance. None of the
companies that contract for service work on the Harvard campus provide
health insurance to workers employed for less than 16 hours per week.
The Administration claims: "The University has established guidelines
governing contracting with outside companies for service work for ongoing
service to the Harvard campus of more than $50,000 per year and for periods
of nine months or more. They specify that companies with whom Harvard
contracts must maintain employment practices (including offering health
insurance to employees who work 16 hours a week or more on the Harvard
campus) consistent with the University's commitment to fairness for all
workers."
· While the motives underlying the extension of health insurance embodied by
the guidelines are to be applauded, the move also risks doing more harm to
employees than good. For instance, the guidelines reduce the hourly
requirements for health insurance from 20 to 16 hours for janitors and from
17.5 to 16 for everybody else. To avoid the extra costs involved in the
provision of such benefits, employers, be they Harvard or its contractors,
may opt to reduce employees hours so as to render them ineligible.
Historical precedents for this exist - when Harvard promised health
insurance to part-timers working 20 hours per week, a lot of them were
suddenly cut back to 19 hours per week. The Living Wage Campaign suggested
independent monitoring to protect workers against such cutbacks; Harvard
refused. The suggestion that the benefit eligibility threshold should be
lowered to a level that would make it simply impractical for such cutbacks
in hours to occur has similarly been met with little consideration.
STARTING WAGES FOR ALL UNIONIZED WORKERS MAKING LESS THAN $10.25/HOUR
Occupation Current Starting Wage Occupation Current Starting Wage
Parking Service Attendants $8.50 Cashier (Campus Restaurants) $8.30
Guards $8.50 Lead (Campus Restaurants) $8.80
Museum Attendants $8.50 Full-Time Custodian $9.65
Short-Order Cook $8.80 Part-Time Assistant Crew Chief $9.85
Counter (Campus Restaurants) $8.05 Part-Time Custodian $9.40
The Administration claims: "Health benefits were made available to all
employees of the University who work at least two days a week as of Jan. 1,
2001."
· Harvard University does not allow its casual employees (including those
working in data entry, as mailroom assistants, shuttle-van drivers,
telephone operators and over 50 other occupational categories) to work more
than 16 hours per week, thereby precluding them from receiving health
benefits.
The Administration claims: "Harvard's education and training program, the
Harvard Bridge to Learning and Literacy, is one of the most innovative and
generous employer-based education programs in the nation. It provides
courses to entry level workers in English-as-a-second-language, basic
literacy, GED, and computer literacy."
· The Living Wage Campaign fully endorses the Harvard Bridge to Learning and
Literacy
program. However, it is also no substitute for the implementation of a
'living wage' for employees at Harvard. 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. We urge the University to
continue with its 'Bridge' program, but to also implement a 'living wage' at
Harvard.
The Administration claims: "President Rudenstine and Provost Fineberg have
open office hours on a regular basis in which they meet with any student
wishing to consult them on any subject. They have met repeatedly with
student advocates of the Living Wage during office hours, during visits to
Houses, and at meetings specifically scheduled to issues relating to
employment practices at Harvard."
· As recently as one week prior to the commencement of the sit-in, during
President Rudenstine's
last office hours, President Rudenstine informed members of the PSLM that
the 'living wage' issue would not be reopened.
The Harvard University administration has attempted to discredit the 'living
wage campaign' by challenging the stated facts of low-wage employment at
Harvard. In doing so, the administration has tried to move the debate away
from whether or not Harvard should implement a 'living wage' towards whether
or not the 'living wage campaign' is credible. However, the move to debate
facts is itself evasive. Why, for example, should Harvard's decision to
implement a 'living wage' depend upon whether there are 400 or 1200 workers
earning below $10.25 per hour in wages? This document establishes the basic
facts of employment in Harvard, citing almost exclusively administration
sources. Hopefully, there will be no more dispute over facts. Maybe we can
now move back to the real question that the University has attempted to
conceal:
WHY NOT IMPLEMENT A LIVING WAGE NOW?
Thanks for your support,
The Harvard Living Wage Campaign
www.livingwagenow.com
