HARVARD TO WORKERS: LET THEM EAT CULTURE A Mother Reports on Her Daughter's Sitting-In for Living Wages Andree Pages is a writer and artist in New York City. She graduated from Harvard College in 1977. In 1976, as a financial aid student at Harvard University, I worked as a campus security guard for $5 an hour. Today, a quarter century later, Harvard pays over 1,000 contract workers as little as $6.50 an hour, without benefits, for that very job and others like it. That is why my daughter and 45 other student protesters began on April 18th what is now known as the Harvard Living Wage Campaign Sit-In. These members of the Progressive Students Labor Movement (PSLM) are camped out in Massachusetts Hall, where President Neil Rudenstine and other administrators have their offices. Students intend to remain in this building until Harvard agrees to grant a minimum living wage of $10.25 an hour plus benefits to all its workers, both "regular" Harvard employees and those subcontracted through outside agencies. (The $10.25 per hour figure is the lowest Cambridge pays its workers, assessed by the City Council as the minimum necessary to live in the city). No spring fling by bored students, the sit-in is the culmination of a so-far fruitless three-year struggle with the administration by the PSLM to address the shameful wages paid many janitors, dining hall workers, and security guards. Harvard is not only the largest employer in Cambridge and the fifth-largest in Massachusetts, but with an endowment of $19 billion, also the richest university on the planet. Full article: http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/30/index.html === INSIDE THE HARVARD SIT-IN: A DAUGHTER'S REPORT Madeleine Elfenbein is a freshman at Harvard College, and a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM). April 18th saw the end of business as usual for Harvard University. At 1:23 p.m., I was among the forty-six students who entered Massachusetts Hall and refused to leave, effectively denying President Neil L. Rudenstine and his closest administrative cohorts the use of their offices. Upon our entrance, the receptionist in the front room hit the button that alerted Rudenstine's secretary to lock his office door, which has since remained locked except to allow for his exit and the subsequent carrying out of several bags of thoroughly shredded documents by armed security professionals. Unmoved by pleading, cajoling and thinly veiled threats of academic sanctions, we continue to occupy the first-floor hallway, two front rooms and private office of the Treasurer. The Harvard police officers stationed inside with us on 24-hour watch haven't attempted to forcibly remove us. Food and necessary medicine are allowed in; fresh underwear and school materials are not. Our generally positive relationship with the police was damaged by a failed attempt to smuggle in Derrida's Speech and Perception by means of a box of Lucky Charms; all food items including pizza boxes are now subject to unprecedented levels of scrutiny before being admitted. Packed into a building that once quartered troops of the American Revolution (the rooms are now littered with sleeping bags and jars of peanut butter) we continue to organize and build support for a living wage for Harvard's lowest-paid workers while struggling to avoid falling behind in our schoolwork. The administration knew that denying us books would have a crippling effect. Recognizing that my grades will inevitably suffer, I expend a lot of energy persuading myself to view these grades as a memento of my greatest deed to date rather than as a reflection of inferior academic achievement. full article: http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/30/1.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
