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May 2001

Point/Counterpoint
Was the PSLM Sit-In a Success?
by the PERSPECTIVE staff

Gov Jocks
Atheletes get more than they deserve.
by Rabia Belt

Covering the Crimson
Harvard's daily faces accusations of unethical behavior
by Liz Thornberry

A Divided Left
Globalization separates, but the living wage unites
by Bob Elliott

The Housing Crunch
Cambridge struggles to keep rents affordable
by Shai Sachs

Views from the Inside
Two PSLM members write about their time in Mass Hall
by Arin Dube and Maddy Elfenbein

Introspective
Off Sides
by Julia Silvis

The Back Page
Everyone in Brick
by Evan Levine

It was the sixth day of the occupation of Massachusetts Hall. I had been trying to get a van from the Phillips Brooks House Association to pick up eight janitors from the Medical School after their shift ended at 9:30 am. These janitors were up in arms about being outsourced in the middle of their contract with Harvard, and we wanted them to have the chance to tell their story to the Harvard community and the media. For the past four months, they had wanted to publicize their plight and take action to stop Harvard from using sub-contracting to destroy their jobs. Unfortunately, the person who was supposed to pick them up was nowhere to be found. And Jean Phane, a janitor and the shop steward at the Medical School, had called me twice to tell me that they were still waiting. "We'll be here for five more minutes," Jean said. "After that we'll have to leave because we have second jobs after this." Twenty minutes had passed since that last conversation, and I had just about given up hope. Feeling resigned, I stuck my head out the window to watch the crowd gathering outside for a rally. Then, suddenly, I saw Jean and his co-workers in the distance. They were being interviewed by a reporter from NBC! Shortly thereafter, they made their way to my window. Exhilarated, I took his hand and thanked him for coming. Equally excited, he said, "This is great. Finally, we can speak about what's happened to us. Thank you for doing this." This brief exchange connected my presence inside Mass Hall to what I had been doing before I ran through the door.

As an organizer with the Harvard Workers' Center, an organization formed last fall to provide a forum where workers and students could collaborate on workplace issues, I have spoken to many janitors and am helping them rebuild their union. The center worked closely with the Living Wage Campaign. We had chosen to focus our initial efforts on Harvard's janitorial sector. Working with 200 janitors, we held various meetings where we collectively identified the major problems at work: lack of full time jobs, lack of affordable health insurance, no meaningful grievance procedures. And of course, deplorably low wages. Wages which were pitiful in comparison even with their fellow workers and friends at other area universities like MIT or Boston University.

While the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is known for its aggressive organizing and for its hard-fought Justice for Janitors victories, part of the problem at Harvard has been the inactivity of the leadership at Local 254 - the janitorial union. For years, the local's leadership had refused to fight for higher wages and better conditions. In their last negotiations, part time workers - constituting a majority of those who labor at Harvard - received raises worth literally a few cents. A few months back, however, the national union was finally able to place Local 254 under trusteeship. We were helping organize the janitorial work force at Harvard in the hopes that the new leadership would meet us halfway. Weeks before the sit-in, we helped organize meetings where most of the rank-and-file members met union representative for the first time in years.

The sit-in changed the pace of this re-organization dramatically. And the visibility that we collectively brought to the issues of low wages and outsourcing gave the workers confidence to speak up without fear. The new leadership at Local 254 was also extremely proactive in providing resources to this campus. Two full-time organizers were assigned to do outreach, leadership development, and action planning. Together with the members of the Living Wage Campaign and the Workers' Center, the janitors planned a rally and a "March to the Dean's Office" at the Medical School to demand living wages, benefits, and an end to outsourcing. The following day, a delegation marched to Harvard Labor Relations in the Holyoke Center demanding the same. In many ways, the sit-in allowed the leadership to prove to its rank-and-file members that a new aggressive approach was in place to protect their rights.

It is in this light that what we won-the early negotiations for the janitors' contracts, the new health care subsidies, and the moratorium on outsourcing (including the Medical School)-means so much to the hundreds of janitors at Harvard. Were it not for the sit-in, contract negotiations would not have begun until December 2002. Instead, Harvard will be renegotiating the contracts six months from now, with wage increases being retroactive to May 1, 2001. But in addition to wage increases, the early negotiations will help transform this union and build power on the shop floor.

Almost two years ago, as members of the Living Wage Campaign, we had worked with the rank-and-file janitors and put together rallies in support of the their contract negotiations-only to tell them that their new contract would give most of them only a few more cents an hour. The organizing we have done over the past months, together with the coalition we have been able to put together through the sit-in, have changed the balance of power in a fundamental way. This December, Harvard will have to do much better than a five-cent raise.

by Madeline Elfenbein

Massachusetts Hall has a proud history of occupation. It quartered Washington's troops on their way to winning the Revolutionary War. It was in roughly the same spirit of protest that 48 students walked through the door of that charmingly modest brick edifice, refusing to leave until administrators acknowledged the need for a living wage at Harvard. Wielding sleeping bags, cell phones, and the active support of thousands of outside supporters, we emerged triumphant after 21 days. Our victory was more collaborative and distinctly less violent than the Revolutionary one, and probably also less momentous. Nevertheless, I left the building with the unmistakable sense that our agreement represents a radical departure from the rhetoric of previous years, even of last month.

During my three weeks in Mass Hall, I received a firsthand education in how power operates at an institution of enormous prestige, and how such an institution responds to open confrontation and public embarrassment. I also learned volumes about community organizing and the power of a well-organized, broad-based coalition to effect change. I emerged from Mass Hall somewhat more sallow, certainly pudgier, and infinitely wiser.

I had entered with an unshakable confidence in my reasons for doing so, a confidence that sprang from the 1500 Harvard workers earning poverty wages. Over the past months, I had seen the world's wealthiest university and the largest employer in Cambridge dismiss charges of injustice on the grounds that it had already examined the issue and formulated its final word. But as the days passed, my certainty of the sit-in's usefulness was tested by its seeming absurdity. The receptionist came to work each day and found us asleep on Oriental rugs or curled up under her desk like it was our own bottom bunk. We ran a high-powered campaign from a single room littered with coffee cartons and peanut butter jars. We brushed our teeth in a single bathroom crowded with personal belongings and a giant bag of granola. Only my conviction that I had no other choice kept me in that farcical office-cum-youth hostel.

My favorite part of the entire event was the tent city that sprang up a few days after our entrance into Mass Hall and spread colorfully through the yard, typically populated by aged elm trees that reek of tradition and immutability. Such a visible symbol of poverty surrounded by ivy-clad dorms bore powerful witness to Harvard's hypocrisy.

I'll admit to experiencing a twinge of uncertainty when President Rudenstine described our action as "coercive," although it seemed that the administration's behavior more than ours was "inconsistent with the fundamental principles of a university." Our commitment to the principle of a living wage and the groundswell of community support we witnessed sustained our presence inside, but it was hard not to doubt whether our approach was the best way of winning substantive gains for workers.

I regret that a noisy, time-consuming, and admittedly disruptive action was required before the administration would agree to reconsider the living wage issue. It speaks volumes about the true nature of the community that our achievements only came after such an extreme protest. By insisting that the rights of workers be respected, we did not unite the community so much as it redefine it. We did not speak in unison, but, for the first time, all voices were heard.

Having come this far, we all have to make sure the discussion continues, and that it is, as President Rudenstine himself put it, "genuinely free." At the very least, everyone should be able to speak freely without fear of punishment. This free-speech haven does not yet exist. Though it is an educational institution, ostensibly committed to the pursuit of truth, Harvard is just like any other corporation in that it uses specific threats to keep workers in check. Since the Living Wage Campaign began distributing its fliers to janitors, signs have been posted in work areas that (illegally) state that no worker may accept such materials. At least one worker who spoke at a rally during the sit-in has had a letter of suspension placed in his file; countless others have been directly told that their job performance and general behavior will be monitored more carefully as a result of their attendance at rallies. The Harvard community should know about the coercive tactics being used to restrict dialogue here. I wish the administration's actions were more in concert with the principles it espouses. Harvard must do more to ensure that its members have a voice that can be heard.

Questions? Comments? Please contact perspy@hcs.harvard.edu