New Report Assesses Living Wage

The University released yesterday a set of labor statistics that give the most complete picture yet of Harvard employees' wages. But Living Wage Campaign members and members of the Faculty task force on labor policy, who met yesterday afternoon, disputed the significance of the statistics.

Harvard presented data suggesting that only about 23 percent of its casual employees do not depend on their work at the University as their primary source of income. Just over 19 percent of casual employees, who are employed for less than three months or work less than 17.5 hours a week, earn less than $10 an hour.

While some members of the Faculty committee--formed by President Neil L. Rudenstine last March to make recommendations on labor policy--said this finding suggested that some of Harvard's lowest-paid employees had other sources of income, campaign members said they believed it was difficult to define what constitutes 'primary' income source.

Harvard gained the statistics from surveys it mailed to a sample of its casual employees. The survey, which was printed in five different languages, asked respondents for basic financial information and whether they rely on Harvard for their primary income.

But Living Wage Campaign members said the survey questions could not give an accurate snapshot of worker's lives.

"It's hard to identify what primary income means. You would be shocked about the daily routine of working three jobs," said Aaron D. Bartley, a second-year student at Harvard Law School.

Weatherhead Professor D. Quinn Mills, chair of the Faculty task force, warned Bartley to be careful about disputing the facts and "impeaching the witness."

"You should not tell us that we cannot rely on their responses," he said. The statistics discussed at yesterday's meeting also showed that just over seven percent of Harvard's 4,985 unionized Harvard employees earn less than $10 per hour.

Of Harvard's estimated 2,036 subcontracted employees, around 23 percent earn less than $10 an hour.

Subcontracted employees are not officially employees of Harvard, but are employed by outside firms that provide services--such as security and construction--to the Harvard community.

The statistics were compiled in fiscal year 1999, which spanned from July 1 to June 30. They were drawn from W-2 tax forms and from surveys of casual employees and subcontractor firms.

Living Wage Campaign members said they valued the statistics but that they believed they did not fully represent workers' situations.

Greg R. Halpern '99, who is working on a book of Harvard employees' oral histories tentatively titled Harvard Works Because We Do told the story of janitorial employees who get only four hours of sleep because they need to work so many jobs.

He said committee members would get more a human angle if they interviewed workers in-person about their Harvard jobs.

"It'd be great if you could do that," he said. "They continue to surprise me with their stories."

He distributed a copy of the text of many of his interviews to the committee members.

The last statistical analysis of the University's workforce analyzed only a single week in last February, and did not include subcontracted labor.

Even as University administrators presented more complete wage data, the Living Wage Campaign has broadened its focus to include increasing benefits as well as wages.

"This is a very different conversation then we had last spring at the Harvard Faculty Club," said Frank E.A. Sander, associate dean of Harvard Law School and a member of the faculty committee. "These are very different things."

In an interview after the meeting, Sander said that with time, both the students and Faculty members had become knowledgeable on wage issues, but that the increased focus on benefits still startled him.

"I was a little surprised: the Living Wage Campaign has suddenly become the Living Wage and Benefits Campaign," he said.

Mills said in view of the lack of consensus on the committee surrounding wage and benefit concerns, he no longer expects the committee to deliver its recommendations as early as he had thought. He now expects the committee to finish its work by the end of the spring semester.

The meetings, Mills said, often became "debating societies" because of the committee members' ideological differences.

"There are strongly held opinions on the opposing sides of this," he said. "We have not tried to get these recommendations into a package yet."

Mills also said the committee has to take into account the wide-ranging ramifications of their recommendations for the wage levels of other University employees.

"This has taken longer than of us anticipated. It's a darn spider web and if you hit it at any one place, it bounces," he said.

After the meeting, Bartley said Mills ought not to assume that raising wages for the University's least-compensated employees will cause a ripple effect.

"I wouldn't see there would be a powerful precedent set to jack up the union workers' wages," he said.

Bartley also expressed concern that the debate has become too dominated by concerns of implementation.

"I think that questions about money are steering away from the moral imperative of a social situation which could be easily altered," he said.