Harvard, living wage, and protest

[Doug Henwood]

Chronicle of Higher Education - web daily - March 1, 2002

Harvard U. Reaches Tentative Pact With Janitors, Clarifies Policy on Protests
By AUDREY Y. WILLIAMS

Harvard University has tentatively settled a contract dispute with 
its janitors that will pay them $11.35 an hour, ending a 
long-standing debate that prompted sit-ins last spring. The 
settlement comes the same week that the university announced a new 
interpretation of its policy on campus protests that is designed to 
discourage such disruptions in the future.

The settlement, which comes after six weeks of negotiations, will 
give more than 700 janitors slightly more than the hourly wage of 
$10.83 to $11.30 that a special committee recommended in December for 
low-wage workers. Janitors who have worked at Harvard for at least 
three years would earn $11.50 an hour, under the agreement reached 
between the university and the Service Employees International Union 
Local 254, which represents Harvard's janitors. The higher wages are 
retroactive to May 15, 2001.

The agreement also calls for benefits that include short-term 
disability for part-time workers and access to health care for 
janitors who work as few as 16 hours a week, said David A. Jones, 
Harvard's lead negotiator and director of the university's office of 
labor and employee relations.

Janitors can look for annual wage increases through 2005, the 
university's president, Lawrence H. Summers, said in a statement. The 
raises would bring their pay to at least $13.50 an hour at the end of 
the agreement.

"We characterize it as one significant step for Harvard and one giant 
leap for the Harvard work force," Mr. Jones said.

Officials of the union could not be reached for comment. Its members 
will vote on the agreement today.

Earlier this week, the janitor negotiations were marked by the 
arrests of nine students, workers, and labor officials who protested 
by blocking traffic in front of Harvard's Office of Labor and 
Employee Relations.

On Thursday, the university took a stance that could make students 
think twice about employing such protest tactics, especially sit-ins 
like the one outside of the president's office that lasted three 
weeks last year.

The university released an official "interpretation" of its policy on 
protests and demonstrations, making it clear that it is 
"unacceptable" for students to occupy a Harvard building and disrupt 
the university's normal activity. The statement also recommends that 
students who participate in sit-ins at the campus be suspended.

Harvard's original policy was adopted in 1970 after students took 
over University Hall, which houses the offices of several deans, the 
year before. Thursday's statement says that Harvard is committed to 
allowing all members of the university to "express their views freely 
and vigorously," but it also wants to make sure that people on campus 
"carry out their normal duties and activities in support of the 
university's mission without interference or constraint by others.

Some students were upset by the administration's interpretation, 
which was adopted by Harvard's governing boards.

"It's outrageous that they wouldn't involve the whole community in 
some sort of consultative process," Benjamin L. McKean, a participant 
in last spring's sit-in, told The Harvard Crimson.