Workers denounce Harvard president’s attacks on women
By
Ed Childs
Published Mar 2, 2005 2:58 PM
Childs is chief steward of UNITE HERE Local 26.
The 500-member Boston local will be entering contract negotiations with Harvard
University in June. This year's contract struggle is tied to the union's
national campaign to win contracts throughout the country that end around the
same time, which would increase union bargaining power. The Harvard Independent,
the student newspaper, published Childs' letter as an opinion piece on Feb. 24.
I'm an organizer within Local 26 of the dining hall workers
at Harvard. We've been having meetings about President Summers' statement on the
"innate inferiority" of women. In our union here, and in the service industries,
the majority of workers are women.
The dining hall workers look upon the
president's statement as something that has been presented to them to terrorize
them--as an idea from the past of colonialism. Most of our members are
immigrants who come from countries and places that have been
colonized.
The idea of the "innate superiority" of the colonizer was put
forward to subjugate our members in their home countries. That is why a lot of
our members are here in this country-to escape that oppression.
We look
upon President Summers' statement as nothing but a continuation of this old
theme that most of us thought had been put to bed by science and by
anti-colonial struggles around the world. As far as science goes on this theory,
many of us have read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mis measure of Man," and
understand that the president's position is put out not as a scientific position
but as a political position.
For President Summers to raise this idea here
and now is an intentional infliction of emotional distress on us as workers,
bringing up nightmares from the past, and putting terror into our future. This
can only create a hostile work environment--to go to work and have the boss tell
you that you are inferior, to say, not in a cussing way, but in a high-browed
superior way, that this is a fact.
And we see from the newspapers today
that hate groups are on the rise, like the KKK. A statement like that of
President Summers makes a direct connection to those who believe "innate
inferiority." We all should remember when 20,000 members of the KKK marched in
front of Woodrow Wilson as he stood as president in front of the White House.
President Summers' statement gives such hate groups that kind of a green light,
and gives them recruiting tools. This endangers our communities. Some of our
workers have felt these hate groups personally, but all have feared them from a
distance.
The president's statement also brings up a situation of unfair
labor practice, as we are preparing to go for negotiation for a new contract for
next year. A tactic of the employer is always to divide and conquer. We look
upon his statement as a tool of division between men and women. We've seen that
division played out in reality, in high schools, on campus, in the work place.
In the service industries, employers have always tried to divide the men and the
women.
This division is also a tactic by employers to lower the
self-esteem of the workers, so they are disoriented at negotiations as they try
to get a fair contract at a living standard that would be good for their
families. This tactic also diminishes the status of the people who are targeted,
which makes it more difficult for them to appeal to the broader community for
justice and support in our struggles for better living standards.
For the
so-called intelligentsia to say that a people are innately inferior lowers their
status in society, and as individuals their confidence starts to erode. We feel
that for President Summers to make this statement in a time of tension when
Social Security is being threatened, when health insurance is threatened, when
job security is being threatened--we feel that this is a reckless statement, and
an abuse of power.
The dining hall workers have discussed the president's
statement, and we've put it aside, like many other obstacles. We will not allow
these divisions to be thrust upon us. We'll march together. We are more united
now than ever.
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