Area Politicians, Faculty Join Wage Protest

Though Living Wage Campaign members came away from nearly two hours of speeches and chants at yesterday's rally with no new guarantees from the University administration, organizers still said the demonstration was a victory for the movement.

"I thought it was really successful considering we started planning it about six days ago and we didn't really have any confirmed speakers as recently as three days ago," said Aaron D. Bartley, a first-year law student who helped organize the protest.

Around 60 demonstrators attended the event, which featured 17 speakers who spoke in support of the campaign.

"This is the most significant wave of student activism since the 1960s," said University Professor Cornel R. West '74, one of the speakers. "It shatters the stereotypes that young students are not concerned with what is right and just."

West, State Representative Jarrett T. Barrios '90 (D-Cambridge), Cambridge Vice Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio, and others delivered speeches urging the campaign members to keep pressuring the administration.

Afterwards, demonstrators marched from the Science Center to the Holyoke Center, which houses the office of Associate Vice President for Administration Polly Price. Demonstrators had hoped to give Price a copy of their living wage petition--which now includes signatures from around 100 faculty members--and to seek her endorsement, but Price's assistant told the protesters that Price was on vacation.

Protesters still claimed a partial victory.

"We went up with dignity, because the Living Wage Campaign is about people with dignity who ought to be treated the right way. We came back with determination," West said. "We presented her assistant with the endorsement with signatures of every one of us."

While West and other demonstrators were inside the Holyoke Center, a member of the Harvard University Security Guards, Parking Attendants and Fogg Museum Guards' Union told the protestors outside that his union had decided to propose including a liv- ing wage clause in their contract with theUniversity.

"I have been asked to tell you that in ournegotiations with Harvard, our union has put fortha proposal that all workers who make less than $10an hour [get] $10 an hour," security guard DannyMeager told the cheering crowd.

In speeches outside the Science Center, otherHarvard employees stressed the need for a livingwage.

"I lived over here in Cambridge until threeyears ago, when they raised my rent to $1,100 amonth, so I had to get out," said Frank Morley, ajanitor who works at Harvard through an outsidecontractor.

"If they expect us to work, pay us a livingwage," Morley added. "They can afford to do that."

University officials have said funds forraising wages are scarce, but speakers atyesterday's rally said Harvard has a moralobligation to mandate the living wage.

"Harvard doesn't bend its standards when thelarger world does, because an institutiondedicated to the truth cannot and will not," saidRichard J. Parker, founder of Mother Jonesmagazine, a liberal monthly.

"No one should ever confuse Harvard withWal-Mart, Microsoft or McDonalds," said Parker, alecturer at the Kennedy School of Government andthe Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics andPublic Policy.

"Harvard is different than a stock optionscorporation," Barrios added. "This is a placewhere we have the luxury of making an example."

Barrios and Galluccio said that although theCity Council has passed a resolution endorsing thecampaign, they believe the administration willonly agree to pay a living wage if studentscontinue to protest.

"Don't let them think this is over when finalsare over," Galluccio said.

In addition to the speeches, they rallyincluded poems which students rapped and chantsfrom "one, two, three, four, Harvard pay a littlemore" to "no justice, no peace."

Today's rally attracted a smaller crowd than asimilar rally several months ago, which drew about200 students, and March's Rally for Justice, whichdrew about 350 students.

But Living Wage Campaign organizers said theturnout was impressive for reading period, andpromised an even bigger rally at the beginning ofthe next school year

"I have been asked to tell you that in ournegotiations with Harvard, our union has put fortha proposal that all workers who make less than $10an hour [get] $10 an hour," security guard DannyMeager told the cheering crowd.

In speeches outside the Science Center, otherHarvard employees stressed the need for a livingwage.

"I lived over here in Cambridge until threeyears ago, when they raised my rent to $1,100 amonth, so I had to get out," said Frank Morley, ajanitor who works at Harvard through an outsidecontractor.

"If they expect us to work, pay us a livingwage," Morley added. "They can afford to do that."

University officials have said funds forraising wages are scarce, but speakers atyesterday's rally said Harvard has a moralobligation to mandate the living wage.

"Harvard doesn't bend its standards when thelarger world does, because an institutiondedicated to the truth cannot and will not," saidRichard J. Parker, founder of Mother Jonesmagazine, a liberal monthly.

"No one should ever confuse Harvard withWal-Mart, Microsoft or McDonalds," said Parker, alecturer at the Kennedy School of Government andthe Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics andPublic Policy.

"Harvard is different than a stock optionscorporation," Barrios added. "This is a placewhere we have the luxury of making an example."

Barrios and Galluccio said that although theCity Council has passed a resolution endorsing thecampaign, they believe the administration willonly agree to pay a living wage if studentscontinue to protest.

"Don't let them think this is over when finalsare over," Galluccio said.

In addition to the speeches, they rallyincluded poems which students rapped and chantsfrom "one, two, three, four, Harvard pay a littlemore" to "no justice, no peace."

Today's rally attracted a smaller crowd than asimilar rally several months ago, which drew about200 students, and March's Rally for Justice, whichdrew about 350 students.

But Living Wage Campaign organizers said theturnout was impressive for reading period, andpromised an even bigger rally at the beginning ofthe next school year