[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 150 (Friday, November 2, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRIBUTE TO THE HARVARD LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGN

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                         HON. HOWARD L. BERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 1, 2001

  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend to my colleagues a 
beautifully written article by Benjamin L. McKean recounting the 
success earlier this year of the Harvard Living Wage Campaign.
  Mr. McKean is a remarkable young activist who joined with many of his 
classmates in support of the campaign of low-wage workers at Harvard 
University to improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions. At 
a university which prides itself on training future leaders for the 
world at large, Mr. McKean and his young classmates decided to exercise 
leadership right at home on behalf of the less privileged in the 
Harvard community.
  I submit Mr. McKean's article for insertion into the Congressional 
Record.

                    [From the Crimson, May 9, 2001]

                        The Beginning of the End

                        (By Benjamin L. McKean)

       We have organized and won something tremendous in Harvard 
     Yard these past three weeks. Since I entered Massachusetts 
     Hall on April 18, workers at Harvard have seen countless 
     victories. As part of the sit-in settlement, our janitors 
     will begin negotiating a new contract more than a year early 
     and any future pay increases will be retroactive to last 
     week. The University committed to a good contract for our 
     dining hall workers. The administration completely backed off 
     from its threat to reclassify more than 100 of our dining 
     hall workers at the Business School. They agreed to increase 
     access to its English as a Second Language program and to 
     immediately consider health care premiums for low-wage 
     workers. Harvard agreed to a moratorium on outsourcing 
     directly hired employees to subcontractors--and outsourcing 
     has been the primary way the University has slashed wages and 
     benefits for years. Alumni have donated more than $10,000 to 
     the Harvard Workers Center, which provides free legal aid and 
     support to Harvard's poverty wage employees. And the 
     University agreed to a committee to discuss the living wage 
     with student and worker representation. Whatever concerns I 
     have about this committee, it makes a big difference knowing 
     that some of the people on the receiving end of Harvard's 
     poverty wages will be there to tell the other members of the 
     committee exactly what that's like.
       Perhaps most importantly, it is no longer possible for 
     power to operate at Harvard without acknowledging the 
     principle that people deserve a living wage. Our community 
     has a responsibility to treat all its members decently, and 
     we have told the people who thought they led our community 
     that they must do that. Everyone in the Harvard Living Wage 
     Campaign--workers, students, faculty, alumni, area 
     residents--said no to indecent treatment, and to poverty 
     wages. We said stop. All of us.
       The past 21 days are not significant just because dozens of 
     people occupied the President's office. The past 21 days are 
     significant because of what happened outside of this 
     building. Dining hall workers electrified Harvard Yard; 
     worker-student solidarity is so strong that they want to have 
     one of us help bargain their new contract. Faculty came 
     together; about 400 of Harvard's famously individualistic 
     professors together signed a letter calling for a living 
     wage, and supporting the sit-in. Undergraduates turned out in 
     record numbers for the largest rallies that the Yard has seen 
     in decades, and students from every single graduate or 
     professional school organized themselves in support in a 
     completely unheralded way. Thousands of alumni called 
     University President Neil L. Rudenstine, and even temporarily 
     occupied the Harvard Club of New York. And our janitors and 
     custodians organized rallies, trained themselves in civil 
     disobedience and demanded decent treatment. And we all did it 
     together. And so in the last 21 days we have won two 
     victories; one in the form of substantive gains for Harvard 
     workers, and the second a promise made today by this 
     community--a promise to continue to fight for a living wage.
       But our extraordinarily modest and simple demand for $10.25 
     an hour makes a world of difference. On this campus, in this 
     country, people have long fought for the principle that 
     people should be treated without regard to race or to gender 
     or to sexuality. That's because respecting the dignity of all 
     people is the fundamental principle of any community, 
     especially of an educational community. We think an education 
     is valuable because we think people are valuable enough to 
     educate. And for the past 21 days, this whole community came 
     together to say that every one of us is valuable. Every one 
     of us deserves a living wage. And all of us together, in 
     solidarity as never before, told the people who said no that 
     they must say yes.
       We--all of us--have made this a time when power stopped. 
     For 21 days, we occupied the offices of the people who 
     thought they could block the consensus of our entire 
     community. We asked power to justify its operation, and power 
     found that it couldn't. For 21 days, the people who thought 
     they could run this place without regard for students, for 
     workers, for faculty, for alumni and for the Cambridge-area 
     community--those people did not have a clue what to do. For 
     21 days it was not business as usual in the halls of power. 
     We should have no illusions: this sit-in was all about 
     coercion. We all decided that we would not go along with the 
     Corporation's coercive power any more, that we would not let 
     them force indecent poverty wages on members of our 
     community.
       While this tremendous victory marks the end of one phase of 
     our campaign for a living wage, we do not expect the 
     Corporation's coercive power to disappear, and we do not 
     expect this fight to end. We do not need to harbor a utopian 
     fantasy in order to recognize that Harvards' administrators 
     can and must treat people better and pay them better. So 
     today's victory cannot be anything but partial.
       Recognizing that, all of us should look ahead together to 
     the day when we have won a living wage for all Harvard 
     workers, and to the fights beyond that. Together, we can 
     change not just the dialogue, but the reality of the 
     conditions of Harvard's workers. We can turn the coercive 
     power of the Corporation with the force of our collective 
     yes. Together, in solidarity, we can make Harvard's power 
     productive, make it a positive force and take it for workers. 
     We have organized and won something tremendous here in 
     Harvard Yard, because we have organized and won each other. 
     And to keep winning--to win a living wage for all Harvard 
     employees--we've got to keep organizing. Workers, students, 
     faculty, alumni, parents, all community members energized 
     from this victory should together build from here until 
     everyone joins us in saying: Living wage now!

     

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