Strong Support for PSLM

In the weeks before the living wage campaign began its sit-in in Massachusetts Hall, many of us spent hours discussing our worries. Chief among them was the fear of a deeply divided campus: we knew that our community overwhelmingly supported a living wage, but there was no telling how our classmates, professors and neighbors would react to civil disobedience. It has been an amazing thing since April 18 to witness our community come out in steadfast support of a living wage and of a sit-in.

The support of our community has far exceeded our expectations. Workers who had been fearful to speak in public are risking their jobs by addressing hundreds in front of Mass Hall. Janitors and dining hall workers are speaking in English, Spanish and Portuguese about the difficulty of working 90 hours a week, of always being in debt and of working at an institution that accords them no respect. Unions are sending more food into the building than we can eat. We no longer have to line up speakers and musicians for our rallies: professors, students, local politicians, workers, parents and alums approach us asking to take part. Our picket line usually includes people whom we have never before seen—people who have never considered themselves activists, but who are walking until their feet hurt to make sure that no one at our University lives in poverty. And people whom we have never met are sleeping outside Mass Hall every night to support the sit-in—so many that they outnumber those inside the building.

The community’s support for a living wage, and for the sit-in, has been truly overwhelming, and witnessing it grow has been a moving experience. Equally overwhelming has been the lack of vocal opposition. Literally a handful of students have spoken against the sit-in outside the building or in the pages of The Crimson, and after speaking with us or attending public events, several have changed their minds. The lack of vocal opposition has highlighted the isolation of the University administration as it opposes a living wage. The administration’s isolation is also seen in its public response to the sit-in. Provost Harvey V. Fineberg ’67 has issued a statement reiterating the administration’s same old claims: almost no one receives poverty wages, he says, and other perks and benefits have been expanded. These claims have been dissected by the Living Wage Campaign in literature, teach-ins and on our website; they are as wrong now as they were a year ago. The administration isn’t fooling anyone.

Perhaps because administrators know this, their only other public actions have been to refuse to speak, and—in the case of one administrative figure speaking at a pre-frosh panel—to publicly make fun of students silently holding signs for a living wage. Such tactics are, to say the least, unimpressive.

On the inside, the administration’s behavior has highlighted its skewed perception of the values of the Harvard community. “The well-being of students is our number one concern,” said Dean of Undergraduate Education David P. Illingworth to The Crimson. Harvard’s paternalistic administration seems motivated to keep the debate “in the family.” It has long been clear that Harvard’s workers are not considered part of that family. While University police officers address us carefully as “sir” or “ma’am”, a janitor protesting nervously outside the window of Mass Hall is sent on his way with a sharp “Hey, you!” Like parents humoring children into submission, the administration tolerates its students. A police officer declared, “we can get more from them with honey than with vinegar.” The only productive response is to use our student status to expand Harvard’s conception of “family.” This is what we do by sitting in.

A few students have asked whether we are simply engaging in heroics—whether ego, not issue, drives our action. The administration’s paternalism answers this question. Students have freedoms and securities within the University that janitors and other low-wage workers do not. Thus, we have a power that we are called upon to exercise in solidarity with workers who are struggling as forcefully as they can. As many workers have told us, they fear abusive treatment, the loss of their livelihoods and even deportation if they participate in public acts of protest. Poverty also imposes limits on organizing that are not often appreciated: as Ed Childs, chief steward of our dining hall workers union, said, “we’d like to organize more with some of the workers who don’t have a living wage—but none of them have phones. The only way to reach them is on the job.” Despite organizational obstacles, dozens of workers have courageously demonstrated outside Mass Hall this week. We sit inside, turning our unequal privilege into power and solidarity.

We are overwhelmed by our community’s support, and we are proud to see the sit-in illustrate the moral courage of our community. United we stand—yesterday, today and tomorrow—for a better community for us all.

Fatma E. Marouf and Ashwini Sukthankar ’95 are students at the Law School and members of the living wage campaign.