4/22 HARVARD LIVING WAGE SIT-IN UPDATE
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, join the fast, and contact the
 administration to show support.  Other ways to help follow, and are
essential to the success of this action.

**FAST FOR A LIVING WAGE** Show the Harvard administration how much you
care about the struggle for economic justice for University employees.
Participate in a 24 hour fast, from Monday morning to Tuesday morning.
Organize people in your home town or university to fast in solidarity to
the Harvard Living Wage Campaign.  Contact Arin: rindub@hotmail.com,
617-596-6159 to be added to the list of those participating.

**ADMINISTRATION RESPONSE**  The administration continues to refuse to
negotiate. They have sent out an extremely misleading letter to media and
those who write support e-mails. Our response to this letter follows.

We insist that the administrators grant the demands of their students,
faculty,  alumni, and staff - the people who make up this University.  YOU
MUST URGE THEM TO DO SO.  Please continue to contact them 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.

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, lewis@harvard.edu
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  

SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear President Rudenstine,

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 it's 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 also insist 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,


**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.  Bands
will be performing in the early afternoon.

2PM: Ecumenical Service in support of the living wage sit-in
Led by Rev. George Magnusson, former Executive of the Presbytery of Boston;
Rev. Carrie Doehring, Boston University Professor; and Rev. Carolyn Bittes,
Harvard Chaplain. Other faiths will be represented, and all faiths are
welcome to participate and contribute. 

3PM: Catholic Mass in support of the living wage sit-in
If you plan to go to a service tomorrow, please, come worship at Mass Hall.

4:30PM:  Student Group Rally at Massachusetts Hall
Student group leaders will speak in favor of a living wage.  If you are a
student group leader and would like to speak, show up or call Jen: 571-4205.

8PM: Vigil

ALL NIGHT: Tent City.  Come and sleep out with us!  Our presence must
continue to grow!

**YOU CAN HELP**
If you would like to perform or speak at an event, please contact
617-290-5802 or 617-645-0767.

JOIN IN THE FAST (see above) 

IF YOU HAVE
2 MINUTES: 
* Contact administrators and insist that they negotiate with the
protestors.  Contact info above.

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: 617-645-0767, rray@fas
* Tell your friends, TFs, professors, parents, students, and alumni.  Go to
office hours and make phone calls. 
* Get support signs 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.  

FIRST YEARS (AND OTHERS): 
* Bring your pre-frosh to living wage events or to join the picket line.  
* Make a banner and hang it from your window.  Supplies in front of Mass Hall.

ALUMNI, PARENTS, AND DONORS: 
* Contact the administration and tell them that you will not donate any
money until they negotiate with protesters or grant a living wage.

PROFESSORS AND OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS: 
* 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: To find out how else you can help, talk to Ben Stoll.
stoll@fas.harvard.edu; 493-3662; 834-5824

E-MAIL: If you or someone you know are not receiving and would like to be,
contact jwagner@fas.harvard.edu or pslm@hcs.harvard.edu 

**YESTERDAY**
The House Masters of Adams, Eliot, Cabot, and Lowell have come inside and
offered their support. Rev. Gomes came to the window and spoke with some of
the protestors.  In addition to the dozens of endorsements we've received
from faculty since this began, Prof. Lucie White of the law school taught
her class at Mass Hall because two of her students were inside.

During Yesterday's rally, a small number of protesters exited Mass Hall in
order to confront Rudenstine at a prospective student event.  They were
joined by others, and about 20 protesters silently sat at the foot of the
stage with their mouths gagged and holding signs, to powerfully protest the
refusal of the administration to discuss a living wage.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and Gore 2000
Campaign manager and IOP fellow have all come by and endorsed the sit-in.
John Sweeny, President of the AFL-CIO has called to endorse the sit-in.
State Rep. and Harvard grad Jarrett Barrios brought the inside team coffee
and donuts yesterday morning. HUTCW (Harvard Union of Clerical and
Technical Workers) and SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local
254, and other unions have also brought donated multiple meals.

**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 HARVARD'S STATEMENT**
1.  Harvard says:  "A very small fraction of Harvard employees (about 400
...) were paid less than $10 per hour."

The truth is:  The University's own figures reveal at least 1000 - perhaps
2000 - workers at Harvard getting less than a living wage.  Harvard
obscures the truth by talking about "Harvard employees" and ignoring the
many people who work at Harvard for Harvard through a contracting firm.
These people do the same work, be it maintenance, cafeteria or security
guard, as employees on the Harvard payroll.  In many cases, subcontract
employees have simply replaced direct employees, or Harvard has converted
direct employees to subcontracted ones, slashing their wages and benefits
in the process.  Furthermore, Harvard leaves out of many calculations
"casual" employees - non-unionized employees who are supposed to work only
a limited number of hours for Harvard, but often work more than Harvard's
rules allow.  They too do the same jobs as "regular" Harvard workers.

In fact, we believe that significantly more than 500 subcontracted workers
get less than a living wage, which would make the total closer to 2000.
Harvard manipulates the definition of "Harvard employee" to deny many of
the people who make Harvard work.

2.  Harvard says:  "There have been a number of occasions for the [the
Living Wage Campaign] to present their views ... to members of the
University administration."

The truth is:  Harvard has repeatedly denied the Living Wage Campaign any
opportunity to speak to the body that makes the ultimate decision about
whether workers at Harvard get a living wage.  That body is the Harvard
Corporation, which has ultimate authority over the running of the
university under Harvard's bylaws.  We have repeatedly petitioned for a
meeting with the Corporation, and Harvard has repeatedly refused.

3.  Harvard says:  "The 1999-2000 review ... recommended innovative
programs to enhance the status and opportunities of service employees.
These recommendations [] have been adopted by the University."

The truth is:  By its own admission, Harvard is not close to implementing
the recommendations that it said last May it was adopting.  Associate Vice
President for Human Resources Polly Price told us that she would speak with
subcontractors about the recommendations in January 2001.  In March 2001,
she told us that she would do so this summer.  In the meantime, Harvard has
not even written the "code of conduct" that it promised to impose on
subcontracting firms.  

In the six months after Harvard approved the recommendations, the Living
Wage Campaign spoke to workers from all areas of the university.  We did
not find a single worker who had heard of the increased access to benefits
that the report promises. Workers who were eligible for benefits were still
not receiving them, and didn't even know that they should be receiving
them.  President Rudenstine told us that if workers didn't know that they
were entitled to benefits, it was their unions' fault for not passing the
news along.  But, as noted above, the truth is that many subcontracted and
casual workers are not unionized, so if they are unaware of the benefits
Harvard promised the fault can rest only with Harvard.

Harvard speaks with particular pride of the Bridge Program, which teaches
English to workers at Harvard.  But workers have told the Living Wage
Campaign that they signed up for the program months ago and never heard
back from management.  The truth is that during the fall 2000 semester, the
Bridge Program served only 143 workers-hundreds fewer than anticipated.
And Vice President Price told us that Harvard expects the program not to
expand in the spring semester.

4. Harvard says:  "[T]here have been a number of occasions for the students
to present their views directly to the committee [Ad Hoc Committee on
Employment Practices]."

The truth is:  Although the committee did meet with students, in its
seventeen meetings it only found time to meet with one worker.  That worker
was brought to the committee by the Living Wage Campaign.

5.  Harvard says:  "The 1999-2000 review [was] conducted by a faculty
committee."

The truth is:  The committee's own report lists its composition as six
professors and two administrators.  Another four administrators served as
staff to the committee(including Polly Price, discussed above).  The
committee included no students and - oddly, given its mandate to study
Harvard's employment policies - no Harvard workers.  All its members were
handpicked by President Rudenstine.  An administration-faculty committee
selected by the administration cannot represent the faculty, much less the
University.

6.  Harvard says:  "These recommendations [from the Ad Hoc Committee] ...
include expanded availability of health benefits for part-time workers."

The truth is:  If it is ever implemented, the Committee's proposal may well
reduce health care for Harvard workers.  Currently part-time employees on
the Harvard payroll are offered health insurance if they work over twenty
hours a week.  The committee recommended lowering that to sixteen hours.
The risk is obvious:  Harvard and its subcontractors will simply cut
part-time workers down to 15 hours per week.  When Harvard promised health
insurance to part-timers working 20 hours per week, a lot of them were
suddenly cut back to 19 hours.  We suggested independent monitoring to
protect workers against such cutbacks;  Harvard refused.  

7.  Harvard says:  "[T]he University meets and exceeds its stated goal of
providing fair ... compensation and benefits packages for its employees."

The truth is:  We agree that Harvard has stated this goal;  the problem is
that Harvard is not living up to it.  The National Low-Income Housing
Commission estimates that a wage of over $15 per hour is necessary to
afford a two-bedroom apartment in the Boston area. Another study, published
by Wider Opportunities for Women, found that in a family with two working
adults and one child, each adult needed to earn $11.41 per hour to live in
the Cambridge area in 1997. A single parent with one child needed to earn
$17.47. In Boston, the corresponding figures were $10.08 and $15.28. These
figures do not include extravagant living.  They do not even include the
rise in the cost of living over the last three years.  
Those minimal wages are why workers at Harvard are taking second and even
third jobs elsewhere, working 70 and 80 hours per week.  Those minimal
wages are why some Harvard custodians regularly eat in soup kitchens.   

In fiscal year 1999, Harvard paid $10 million to one fund manager - about
as much as it would have cost to give a living wage to 2000 other
employees.  Does Harvard think that that is fair?

Thanks for your support!

The Harvard Living Wage Campaign
www.livingwagenow.com