[776] in peace2
5/9 HARVARD LIVING WAGE UPDATE
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (harvard living wage campaign)
Wed May 9 23:53:55 2001
From: "harvard living wage campaign" <harvard_livingwagecampaign@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 03:51:33 -0000
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
Message-ID: <F7mBySsxVY60mJWEsBk00001e2b@hotmail.com>
5/9 HARVARD LIVING WAGE SIT-IN UPDATE
www.livingwagenow.com
The sit in is over and we can claim victory! Over 1500 Harvard students,
workers, alumni, and community supporters turned out for yesterday's rally
to greet the 23 students who had remained inside of Massachusetts Hall for
21 days. Official statements follow or can be found on
http://www.news.harvard.edu/specials/workers (though you'll have to take
some of their language -- like calling a living wage "arbitrary" -- with a
grain of salt).
A month ago, the administration told us that the issue of a living wage was
permanently closed. Since then, when confronted with the energy and power
of the Harvard community, and others around they world, they agreed to a
process that, if properly implemented, will bring a living wage to our
entire campus within a year. The creation of such a process, rather than
offering an immediate concession to all of our demands, allows the
administration to claim that their decision was not forced by the sit-in,
but we feel confident that in the end it will result in the resolution we
have always hoped for - a living wage.
We will to keep organizing to make sure that the promises the University
made yesterday come to fruition -- and with our community mobilized as it is
now, we know they will.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Some final notes...
2. Statement of the Harvard Living Wage Campaign
3. Statement of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, Hotel
and Restaurant Workers Local 26, the Service Employees International Union
Local 254, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the AFL-CIO
4. Statement of Pres. Rudenstine
5. Harvard University: Elements of Future Process
**FINAL NOTES**
* If you lent us tents, sleeping bags etc. you can pick them up tomorrow
between 6pm and 10pm in the FUP office in Matthews basement (in Harvard
Yard, to the left of Mass Hall). There will be other times you can also get
your stuff - check our webpage (www.livingwagenow.com) for schedule or
contact Neil Sinhababu (sinhabab@fas.harvard.edu, 617-493-2512).
* If you are missing other stuff, it might be in the basement of Phillips
Brooks House. Get in touch with someone you know who's been working on the
campaign, or reply to this message if you need help.
* There will be only one more message going out over this list. If you
would like to subscribe to the low volume permanent listserve of the Harvard
Progressive Student Labor Movement, which will have updates now and again
about the Living Wage Campaign and Harvard Students Against Sweatshops, send
an e-mail to:
HarvardPSLM-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Other important listserves:
Living Wage Announcements: harvardlivingwage-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Higher volume organizing list for all who are active in the campaign:
livingwageplanning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
If you are active in the campaign or would like to be, you should be
subscribed to all of the above lists.
If for some reason e-mail subscription doesn't work, reply to this message
and ask to be subscribed.
* Please offer your continued support: If you didn't fill out a card at the
rally yesterday, respond to this e-mail saying that you'd like to stay
involved and what aspects of the campaign you'd be interested in helping
with (ex: student outreach, worker outreach, alumni outreach, action
planning, faculty organizing, community organizing…). Come to our next
meeting which will be announced over the HarvardPSLM listserve. Return for
a celebratory vigil at Mass Hall, this Sunday at 8. Pledge to the Worker's
Center, the Living Wage Escrow Fund, or withold donations until there's a
living wage. Visit our website to find out more.
**Statement of Harvard Living Wage Campaign**
May 8, 2001
In the last 21 days, the Harvard Living Wage Campaign has
won tremendous victories, building a community-wide
affirmation of the living wage principle. The university-wide
committee process with worker and student participation, the
commitments about collective bargaining with SEIU Local 254
and HERE Local 26, the possibility of back-pay for Harvard's
custodians, and the moratoriums on outsourcing promise
substantive gains for workers at Harvard.
The students, faculty, alumni, clergy, area citizens, and workers
of all backgrounds who make up our campaign are united in
overwhelming support for a living wage for all workers at
Harvard, and for each other as vital members of our
community. Together, we are now changing not just the
dialogue about but the reality of the conditions for workers at
Harvard - and for workers at universities across the nation.
And after 21 days, the Harvard community welcomes the
administration's new commitment to understanding and
addressing poverty in our University. We believe that any
administrative process that reflects and represents the
community will recognize today's historic affirmation of the
principle of a living wage. We will remain vigilant, and work
to ensure that happens.
Today we are taking important first steps towards a time when
no worker at Harvard needs to work 80 hours a week, when no
worker at Harvard cannot spend time with his or her kids, and
when no worker at Harvard needs to worry about basic health
care or paying the rent. Workers at Harvard and their families
must earn decent wages that keep them from poverty and affirm
their dignity. We as a campaign and community must continue
to struggle towards that time. We want to thank the people from
all parts of the globe who have offered help to Harvard
workers in their struggle, and we pledge our support and
solidarity to all those in similar struggles. All of us working
together can broaden and deepen the movement for economic
justice.
**Statement of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, Hotel
and Restaurant Workers Local 26, the Service Employees International Union
Local 254, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the AFL-CIO**
May 8, 2001
Today's announcement by Harvard University regarding the
living wage issue is a major achievement of which all the
members of the University community can be proud. The Living
Wage Campaign at Harvard has won an unprecedented
commitment by Harvard University to address the fundamental
moral issue of Harvard's adopting an internal uniform wage
floor for all the people who work at Harvard - direct and
contract, casual and permanent employees, those who have a
union and those who do not. The Committee formed today is an
equally unprecedented body that will bring together Harvard
workers, students, senior faculty and administrators. Harvard's
substantive commitments to make certain future pay increases
retroactive, to place a moratorium for at least several months
on outsourcing of custodial, food service, parking attendant,
and museum guard work, and to immediately consider health
care premiums for low wage workers are all major
accomplishments by the Living Wage Campaign and the
University administration. On behalf of the union movement as
a whole, we wish to express our admiration and gratitude to
the students of the Harvard Living Wage Campaign for their
tremendous efforts, efforts that have made a dramatic
contribution to the Harvard community.
Harvard workers and their unions will be fully engaged
participants in the work of the Committee formed to address
living wage issues. We have every expectation the Committee
will accomplish its mission in a manner that will do honor to
the Harvard community and that will contribute to the national
dialogue on the rights of all working people.
The days to come should bring the Harvard community
together. The union movement believes that the single most
important immediate step Harvard University and its Faculties
can take following today's announcements is to quickly
welcome the student protestors back into the normal routines of
the University. Specifically, we strongly urge the Harvard
administration and the Faculties to refrain from disciplinary
action that would certainly lead to continuing unnecessary
divisions within the University community.
For our part, we pledge the union movement's continuing
vigorous support to the student protestors, and on behalf of the
people who work every day at Harvard we congratulate all
involved in today's announcement-the administration,
Faculties, alumni, students, and Harvard's police officers - for
a job well done.
**Statement of President Neil L. Rudenstine**
May 8, 2001
Today, I want to describe a series of steps intended to reaffirm several
strongly held values important to our University.
As a socially responsible institution, Harvard is committed to employment
practices that reflect a humane and principled concern for the well-being of
all individuals who work here.
As an employer of unionized employees, Harvard is committed
to working constructively with union leaders through the
process of collective bargaining to achieve our common goals.
As a university, Harvard is committed to careful inquiry and
reasoned discussion about issues of broad concern within our
community.
Let me describe, concretely, our plans for moving forward on
these commitments.
***
First, I am pleased to report more fully on plans for a new
University committee to consider the economic welfare and
opportunities of lower-paid workers at Harvard.
Each of us has a stake in the well-being of everyone who
works at the University. I believe there is much to be learned
and gained from further intensive consideration of how
Harvard can best approach this set of issues in the future,
building on but not limited by efforts already under way.
I also believe that reasoned deliberation, by a faculty-led
committee that gathers objective information and brings
together different points of view, is the appropriate way for a
university to address such matters with the care and clarity they
deserve.
I will ask the new committee to discuss, debate, and make
recommendations on the principles and policies that should
guide the University's employment practices in regard to the
total compensation and opportunities available to lower-paid
members of Harvard's workforce. As part of its wider inquiry,
the committee will be invited to consider a full range of views
- and, in its report, to express its own view - regarding the
principled basis, desirability, and the feasibility of an internal
uniform wage floor at Harvard.
In addition, I will ask the committee to consider principles and
policies concerning the "outsourcing" or "contracting out" of
services performed on the Harvard campus. A copy of the full
charge to the committee is being released along with this
statement.
The committee will consist of twenty members from across the
University. It will be chaired by Lawrence Katz, Professor of
Economics, and will include an additional ten faculty
members, five staff members (three unionized employees and
two senior administrators), and four students.
The faculty members are David Ellwood (Kennedy School of
Government), Caroline Hoxby (FAS), Daniel Meltzer (Law
School), Martha Minow (Law School), Susan Pharr (FAS),
Thomas Scanlon (FAS), Marcelo Suarez-Orozco (School of
Education), Sidney Verba (FAS), David Wilkins (Law School)
and Dyann Wirth (School of Public Health). The three
unionized employees are Edward Childs (Hotel Employees
and Restaurant Employees Local 26), Alexandra Chisholm
(Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers), and Jean
Phane (Service Employees International Union Local 254).
The two senior administrators are Bonnie Newman, Executive
Dean of the Kennedy School, and Anne Taylor, Vice President
and General Counsel. The four students will be nominated by
our duly constituted student organizations: two undergraduate
students, to be nominated by the Undergraduate Council, and
two graduate or professional school students, to be nominated
by the Harvard Graduate Council.
The committee will be expected to reach widely across the
University community to solicit a broad range of perspectives.
It will also be expected to ground its analysis in a thorough
examination of relevant data as well as existing policies and
practices, both at Harvard and within other pertinent
organizations.
I will ask the committee to meet for at least one planning
session before the end of Commencement week in early June.
The committee will direct staff to gather needed data over the
summer so that the committee can embark on fuller
deliberations once the fall term begins. I will ask the
committee to issue its report and recommendations by
December 19, 2001. The President of the University will then
invite comment and consult with the Faculties, the Deans, and
others before taking action.
As I have consistently emphasized in recent weeks, both in
public comments and in meetings with faculty and others, I
believe that such a broad-based, faculty-led process is the
proper means for a university to discuss and debate such
issues. There should be no prejudgment about outcomes, only a
shared commitment to marshaling relevant evidence, hearing
different points of view, weighing principled arguments, and
proposing fair and practical recommendations for action.
***
I also want to report on further efforts to strengthen relations
with Harvard's many valued unionized employees and to
underscore our shared commitment to good-faith collective
bargaining. The University is proud of its record of
constructive working relations with the various unions who
represent Harvard employees, and we are determined to build
on that record for the future.
First, in March, the University and the leaders of its largest
union, the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers
(HUCTW), came to terms on an excellent new three-year
agreement. On May 1, the union's membership voted
overwhelmingly to ratify the agreement, which provides for
appropriate wage increases (including larger increases for
lower-wage members), as well as enhanced benefits and
educational opportunities. The negotiations toward the
agreement took place in an atmosphere of clear mutual trust
and goodwill, and much credit is due to the HUCTW's leaders
for the creativity and collegiality they displayed throughout the
process. (A joint statement describing the new agreement will
be issued shortly.)
Second, Harvard is now embarking on scheduled contract
negotiations with Local 26 of the Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees union, which represents dining-service
employees of Harvard. The University is confident that these
negotiations will soon result in a strong new collective
bargaining agreement for our dining workers.
Third, Harvard has recently pursued discussions with Local
254 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),
which represents custodial workers at the University. To
underscore its commitment to constructive good-faith
bargaining, the University has agreed that, within four weeks
after the new faculty-led committee issues its report, Harvard
will commence bargaining with the SEIU on a new contract, to
succeed the one scheduled to expire on November 15, 2002.
By starting such negotiations earlier than usual, the University
hopes both to build an enduring positive relationship with the
SEIU's new local leaders, and to take advantage of a highly
progressive if time-intensive approach (known as
"interest-based bargaining") that proved very fruitful in the
recent HUCTW negotiations. If Harvard and the SEIU agree to
wage increases as part of the eventual successor agreement,
Harvard has expressed its willingness to make any such
increases retroactive to the midpoint of the three-year
agreement now in effect. In addition, at the SEIU's request,
Harvard has undertaken to expedite access to English as a
Second Language courses for lower-paid workers in need of
such training, and to explore (with the University Benefits
Committee) possibilities for improving access to affordable
health care.
Finally, "outsourcing" of on-campus services is a matter that
can have a direct bearing on our lower-paid workers, and it
will receive the attention of the new University committee, as I
noted earlier. In order to ensure that the committee's
deliberations can inform future actions in this area, Harvard
will defer consideration of any newly emerging proposals to
outsource work performed by custodians, food-service
personnel, museum guards, or parking attendants until the
committee completes its work and its recommendations are
acted upon.
***
Together, the steps I have outlined above give tangible
expression to a set of enduring ideals. Important issues of
widespread concern within our community should be discussed
carefully and responsibly, through an appropriate process.
Substantive outcomes should emerge from reasoned
deliberation, not otherwise. A university and the unions
representing its employees should pursue approaches to
collective bargaining that aim to advance common interests.
And all of us in the university community should be concerned
for the welfare and dignity of each one of us. Harvard has long
aspired to meet these ideals. We will continue to do so.
**Harvard University: Elements of Future Process**
University Committee
President Rudenstine is now constituting a committee to be
composed of a faculty chair, ten faculty members, five Harvard
staff members (three unionized employees and two
administrative and professional staff), and four students (two
undergraduate and two graduate/professional). Lawrence Katz,
Professor of Economics (FAS), will chair the committee. The
additional faculty members are David Ellwood (Kennedy
School of Government), Caroline Hoxby (FAS), Daniel
Meltzer (Law School), Martha Minow (Law School), Susan
Pharr (FAS), Thomas Scanlon (FAS), Marcelo Suarez-Orozco
(School of Education), Sidney Verba (FAS), David Wilkins
(Law School) and Dyann Wirth (School of Public Health). The
three unionized employees are Edward Childs (Hotel
Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 26), Alexandra
Chisholm (HUCTW), and Jean Phane (Service Employees
International Union Local 254). The two senior administrators
are Bonnie Newman, Executive Dean of the Kennedy School,
and Anne Taylor, Vice President and General Counsel. The
four students will be nominated by our duly constituted student
organizations: two undergraduate students, to be nominated by
the Undergraduate Council, and two graduate or professional
school students, to be nominated by the Harvard Graduate
Council. The committee will be provided appropriate staff. In
addition, Professor Emeritus John Dunlop has agreed to serve
as senior advisor to the committee.
The committee will have a broad mandate to consider and to
present recommendations about University principles and
policies regarding the economic welfare and opportunities of
lower-paid workers at Harvard, both those employed directly
by the University and those employed by companies that
contract to provide on-campus services to the University.
The committee should carry out its work in view of the
University's continuing recognition that Harvard's employment
practices should reflect a humane concern for the well-being of
all individuals who work here. The University, in addition, is
an institution with a commitment to careful inquiry and
thoughtful deliberation, as well as self-examination in the light
of experience. The committee should approach its task in that
spirit, mindful of the need to gather accurate information and to
listen fully to different points of view. It should think both
creatively and realistically about how a university that aspires
to the highest standards in education and research can define
principles and policies that help it to advance the well-being of
people whose often-unheralded efforts do so much to help the
institution function from day to day.
The committee is specifically charged as follows:
The committee should discuss, debate, and make
recommendations concerning the principles and policies
that should guide the University's employment practices in
regard to the total compensation and opportunities
available to lower-paid members of Harvard's
workforce, including full-time, part-time, and temporary
employees. In considering such a framework of
principles, the committee should take account of wages,
benefits, and other terms of employment (including access
to education and training) in themselves and in relation to
one another. Among other things, the committee will be
asked to consider a full range of views and to express its
own view regarding the principled basis, desirability, and
feasibility of an internal uniform wage floor for workers
at Harvard.
The committee should consider and make
recommendations concerning guidelines for the
"outsourcing" or "contracting out" of services performed
at the University. In its deliberations, the committee
should consider policies to guide University decisions on
whether or not to outsource certain services performed at
Harvard. It should also consider policies to guide units of
the University when they do undertake to outsource
on-campus services, including the principled basis,
desirability, and feasibility of adopting standards for the
wages, benefits, or other terms of employment provided to
contractors' on-campus employees.
The committee is expected to ground its consideration of
principles and guidelines in a thorough examination of factual
data--both Harvard-specific and comparative--regarding
wages, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment,
as well as existing contracts for the outsourcing of on-campus
services. Among the information that may be pertinent are data
on wages and benefits provided to workers performing
comparable functions at other institutions of higher education in
the Boston area; on the cost of living in Boston-area
communities; on the demographics and length of service of
Harvard employees; and on the relative compensation of union
and non-union employees, employed directly by Harvard or by
service providers. The committee will also be expected to
examine existing relevant Harvard policies--both
University-wide and unit-specific--as background for its
inquiry, and to take account of policies in place at comparable
institutions. While regarding the May 2000 report of the Ad
Hoc Committee on Employment Policies as a significant point
of reference, the present committee should not consider itself
limited by the data, observations, or recommendations
presented in that prior report.
The committee will be expected to conduct broad outreach
across the University community, actively soliciting, both in
person and otherwise, the views of interested faculty, staff
(including service workers), and students who wish to
contribute their perspectives on these matters. The intention is
to create a fully inclusive process in which all voices within
the University community may be heard and considered.
Throughout its deliberations, the committee should be mindful
of the role of collective bargaining as the legally mandated
means by which employers and unionized employees, through
their representatives, jointly determine the specific terms and
conditions of employment for such employees. The committee's
task is concerned, in substantial part, with making
recommendations about a framework of principles and policies
within which the University should conduct collective
bargaining-as distinct from seeking, through the committee
process, to engage directly in such bargaining.
The committee will meet for at least one planning session
before June 8, 2001. At that meeting, the committee will direct
staff to gather needed data over the summer month so that the
committee will be in a position to begin informed deliberations
at the beginning of the Fall 2001 academic term. The
committee's report and recommendations should be presented
to the President of the University by December 19, 2001 (or
sooner, if feasible). After receiving the committee's report and
recommendations, the President will promptly invite comment
and consult with the Faculties, the Deans, and others before
taking action.
Collective Bargaining with HERE Local 26
Harvard expresses optimism that the contract negotiations with
Local 26 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
Union will, in the near future, produce a contract that will be
mutually satisfactory to the union, its membership, and the
University.
Collective Bargaining with SEIU Local 254
On a mutually agreeable date within four weeks following
issuance of the committee report, Harvard will begin
negotiations with SEIU Local 254 for an agreement to succeed
its current collective bargaining agreement. It shall be a goal of
the parties to develop through these negotiations a newly
strengthened and mutually respectful labor management
relationship. To that end, the parties will consider conducting
these negotiations using interest-based bargaining and other
techniques used with success in the recently concluded
negotiations with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical
Workers.
In the event that these negotiations, as informed by the
committee report, result in enhanced initial wage rates under a
successor agreement, eligible bargaining-unit members will be
paid a lump sum representing the differential between the new
initial wage rate and the wage rate provided by the current
(November 15, 1999-November 15, 2002) contract,
retroactive to the midpoint of the current contract. The
committee should consider whether a similar provision for
contracted custodial workers would be consistent with its
general recommendations concerning policy toward
outsourcing. To be eligible for an appropriate lump-sum
payment following ratification of a successor agreement, an
employee must have worked at Harvard as a member of the
bargaining unit at some time between the midpoint of the
current contract and the effective date of the successor
agreement.
Implementation of Earlier Recommendations
Harvard will take prompt action to examine its implementation
of the recommendations of the May 2000 report of the Ad Hoc
Committee on Employment Policies, specifically relating to
access to English as a Second Language (ESL) training and
affordable health insurance benefits. Harvard will
accommodate access to ESL training for Local 254 members
and appropriate others in need of such training. Harvard also
will refer the question of health insurance co-payment levels
for all lower-paid workers to the University Benefits
Committee for consideration. (Harvard is open to continuing
discussions with SEIU about specific proposals for some form
of short-term assistance relating to health insurance access.)
New Outsourcing Proposals
Until the recommendations of the committee with respect to
outsourcing are formulated and acted upon, Harvard will hold
in abeyance any proposal further to outsource work currently
performed by Harvard-employed custodians, food-service
personnel , museum guards, or parking attendants, provided,
however, that Harvard Medical School may outsource
custodial work during this period if the Medical School and
SEIU so agree.
Thanks for your continued support!
The Harvard Living Wage Campaign
www.livingwagenow.com
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
