Introduction

Conclusion

The suffering that this university brings upon many of its workers is needless and intolerable. No worker or worker’s family should live in poverty, nor should they be forced to balance endlessly on the brink of economic disaster. Yet, in the absence of a living wage policy, many Harvard workers and their families face just these circumstances. Our community can not accommodate this injustice.

Over the past two years, the Living Wage Campaign has won the support of the vast majority of students and workers, every campus union, 115 faculty members, a broad range of community organizations, and political figures ranging from the Mayor of Cambridge to the Chairman of the NAACP. Today, it is difficult to find anyone but a Harvard administrator who will argue against our campaign.

This is because our community has spent two years hashing out the arguments around this issue, and with the exception of administrators whose job it is to resist changes which might cost money or empower workers, people in our community have become convinced of two essential points:

Poverty is widespread on our campus, and the Harvard administration is consciously promoting it through strategies such as outsourcing.

A living wage policy, implemented with benefits, is a fair and affordable step toward eliminating poverty and curtailing Harvard’s effort to outsource for the purpose of cutting wages and benefits.

Not only has our community come to consensus around the idea that a living wage is necessary and feasible, but it is commonly understood that the university’s alternatives—the recommendations adopted from the Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies—are wholly inadequate. For the administration to continue to defend its proposals as effective substitutes for a living wage policy is disingenuous. And for administrators to portray themselves as trustworthy allies of workers even as they escalate the drive to outsource jobs, and give workers no voice in decision-making around the living wage—this is simply absurd.

A living wage policy reflects a commitment to human dignity, a respect for the work that enables the university to function, and an acknowledgment that people do have the right to a decent standard of living. These are hardly radical ideas. In demanding a living wage, we ask that Harvard treat its workers as human beings, not as commodities. We ask that Harvard recognize that the lives of the people it employs are more important than nickels and dimes. We ask that Harvard sincerely commit itself to meeting the human needs in its community.