After 21-day occupation
Elite Harvard yields to worker/student solidarity
See also
By Leslie
Feinberg
After 21 days of occupying Harvard President Neil L.
Rudenstine's office, students emerged on May 8 to the roar of
drumbeats, cheers, whistles and applause of more than 1,000
workers, students, faculty and community supporters.
The protest is a militant chapter in an already
three-year-long campaign by students to win a living
wage--$10.25 an hour plus benefits--for Harvard's most
impoverished employees.
The bold student occupation at Harvard--the General Motors
of academia--captured the attention of the university, the
city and the country. It recalled the militant sit-down
strikes of the 1930s. And the Tent City set up by supporters
outside Mass Hall brought back memories of the encampments of
the unemployed in the same struggle era.
The 21-day Harvard student protest--believed to be the
longest building occupation in the university's
history--wrested concessions from the bosses of this
corporate empire.
University officials finally agreed to establish a
committee of three union workers, four students, 10 faculty
and two senior administrators to re-examine university wage
policies.
A statement from the Living Wage Campaign, issued as the
protesters left the building, noted that: "Before the sit-in
began, the university had fully rejected living wages and had
stated that it regarded the issue of poverty wages on campus
as closed."
Harvard also agreed that until the committee reaches its
conclusions, the university will stop outsourcing custodial
and dining work to outside subcontractors.
The university heads also agreed to early renegotiations
of the contract covering some 650 unionized custodial
workers. A resulting agreement could mean a wage increase for
these very poorly paid workers retroactive to May 1.
And according to the May 9 New York Times, Harvard agreed
to reexamine its health insurance co-payment for hundreds of
its lowest-paid workers.
Solidarity forever!
Who made up the student protesters inside the
building?
On Day 17, occupier Jane Martin leaned out a Mass Hall
window to tell Workers World, "It's a cool group of people.
The gender dynamic is really good. People come from different
backgrounds, different class backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds,
a lot of sexual diversity."
Al Cho, co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian,
Transgender and Supporters Alliance, said the occupiers
included "A good mix of Asians and South Asians and a lot of
them queer."
About half the Harvard occupiers were Jewish students. And
Latino and Black students took part in the overall
protest.
At the May 8 rally to welcome the student protesters,
supporters pumped the air with clenched fists as Ed
Childs--chief shop steward of Local 26 HERE--told them, "We
are a family here. We have redefined family--Black, Latino,
Asian, white, students, workers, faculty, immigrants, women
and men, gay, straight and trans. There are 87 languages in
my union.
"You have awakened a sleeping giant. And it goes beyond
this campus." Referring to the growing mobilization to
protest in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29, Childs concluded,
"Let's tell Bush in the White House that we are coming for
you."
Speakers were cheered when they expressed solidarity with
Black Northeastern students who are involved in their own
occupation because administrators threatened to take away
their campus building.
Several days before the Harvard occupation ended, Workers
World asked Aaron Bentley about the power of the living wage
campaign as he leaned out the window of Mass Hall.
He said, "I think this really is an emerging movement with
a real capability to transform public consciousness about
economic justice and racial justice and some real bonds
between students and workers and labor unions in general in a
way that will be a force to be reckoned with."
The widespread solidarity movement ignited by the
bodacious takeover bears out the truth of what Bentley
stated.
Ashwini Sukthankar, a second-year law student, was inside
the occupation for the first week. She told Workers World
that when the students first burst into the administration
building for the takeover they brought just a little food
with them, assuming police would quickly eject them.
But when the occupation continued, she was impressed with
how quickly the faculty organized themselves to support it.
"Three hundred faculty members signed letters supporting the
sit-in within 48 hours."
One sign of the wide net this struggle cast could be
gauged by a poster hanging on the building next to Mass Hall:
"String theorists for a living wage!"
Support signs were plastered on all the nearby buildings
and hanging from trees in Harvard Yard. The groups in support
of the living wage campaign for Harvard's 1,000 or so
poorest-paid workers included some of the following:
Muslims, Spanish-speaking students, Black Student
Association, Fuerza Latina, Society of Arab students,
Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance,
African students, Lesbian Avengers, Korean students, Tufts
Queer Women, International students, medical students, Queer
Queens, Harvard artists, Graduate music students, Harvard
Square homeless shelter, Walton high school students,
Brandeis Leftist League, Activist Resource Center and
Weathervane magazine.
The student takeover won enthusiastic support from campus
janitors, clerical and technical workers, parents, faculty
members, alumni/ae and all the campus unions.
During the sit-in, protesters told Workers World how
thrilled they were on the first night when hundreds of
militant dining hall workers chanting in thunderous support
of the students delivered pizzas for their first real
meal.
Ed Childs told Workers World that when the food workers
made their first delivery, they told police stationed outside
Mass Hall, "Our job is to feed the students and that's what
we're here to do. This food is going through the door or
through the windows--which will it be?"
From that day forward, deliveries of all meals for student
protesters got inside without delay.
Support from outside the campus included community
leaders, anti-globalization activists, religious groups,
local and national politicians, the Rev. Jesse Jackson,
NAACP, Julian Bond, the rock group Rage Against the Machine,
actors and writers.
Many area unionists joined the campaign. The Massachusetts
AFL-CIO passed a resolution supporting the students, donated
money and sent representatives to the rallies.
On April 30 a labor rally of over 2,000 in front of
Massachusetts Hall featured AFL-CIO President John Sweeney,
Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice
President Linda Chavez-Thompson.
On May 7, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka was
accorded the honor of opening the door of Massachusetts Hall.
As student protesters emerged into the sunlight for the first
time in 482 hours, Trumka saluted their efforts.
"The students were willing to take a stand and took on a
powerful university whose endowment is bigger than the Gross
National Product of most of the countries of the world," said
Trumka. "The workers who cut the grass, clean the offices and
cook the food now have a chance to move out of poverty."
The official statement issued by the Harvard Living Wage
Campaign stated, "In the last 21 days, the Harvard Living
Wage Campaign has won tremendous victories, building a
community-wide affirmation of the living wage principle.
"The university-wide committee process with worker and
student participation, the commitments about collective
bargaining with SEIU Local 254 and HERE Local 26, the
possibility of back pay for Harvard's custodians and the
moratorium on outsourcing promise substantive gains for
workers at Harvard.
"The students, faculty, alumni, clergy, area citizens and
workers of all backgrounds who make up our campaign are
united in overwhelming support for a living wage for all
workers at Harvard, and for each other as vital members of
our community."
The statement concluded, "Today we are taking important
first steps towards a time when no worker at Harvard needs to
work 80 hours a week, when no worker at Harvard cannot spend
time with his or her kids, and when no worker at Harvard
needs to worry about basic health care or paying the
rent."
As student protesters left their occupation, vowing to
continue their struggle, supporters handed each a rose. But
these students are fighting to win bread, as well as roses,
for the most exploited and downtrodden.
Includes reports from Rachel Nasca.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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