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.