For the PSLM, a Public Presence but Mixed Success

When the 52 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) entered Mass. Hall 21 days ago, spirits were high.

They intended to revolutionize the debate over a living wage. And they did, turning a fringe group largely overlooked by Harvard students and administrators into The Topic of Conversation on campus.

In a rare sign of unity, over the next three weeks, hundreds of Faculty members, students, union workers and Cantabrigians joined together to push for a living wage.

Endorsements poured in from around the country from politicians, academics and institutions. Two U.S. senators, civil rights leaders, countless labor leaders, professors, political commentators, Cambridge's mayor and city councillors--all stood outside Mass. Hall and urged the protesters to stay put until Harvard improved workers' pay.

"Do not leave this building until you get the $10.25," urged City Councillor Kenneth Reeves '72 last week.

Over the course of three weeks, the numbers inside Mass. Hall dwindled as academic and health issues forced some protesters out--and the University refused to talk.

Finally, yesterday, the 23 PSLM members remaining left Mass. Hall without a living wage--and with no assurances that there will ever be one at Harvard.

The committee that outgoing President Neil L. Rudenstine announced yesterday as part of the agreement to end to sit-in falls short of the commitment PSLM initially wanted.

It does not promise wage hikes to a living wage level. It offers promises to "reexamine" health care benefits and other workers' issues and open "renegotiations" with several unions.

And some of the loudest cheers came yesterday when PSLM members announced the University's moratorium on outsourcing. But the moratorium is only good through December, and contains provisos that allow the Medical School to continue outsourcing with union approval.

Despite the uncertainty, the mood at yesterday's rally showed no ambivalence about who won.

"If this new committee respects the overwhelming mandate from you people out there, we can be confident that it will come back with a living wage," PSLM member Molly E. McOwen '02 told the cheering crowd yesterday.

"The University's been telling us that the issue of the living wage is closed. Now we've got a committee that has a mandate that specifically reopens the possibility of a living wage," said PSLM member Matthew A. Feigin, a third-law student.

However, where the committee will head, what its recommendations will be and their subsequent implementation is anything but clear--there's even uncertainty about the student representation of the committee in the eyes of the PSLM, according to member Benjamin L. McKean '02, as the student representatives will be chosen by the Undergraduate Council, which condemned the sit-in in an official resolution two weeks ago.

On top of the uncertainty around the committee itself, the committee's recommendations will be handed down during the middle of the first semester of incoming President Lawrence H. Summers' tenure.

Summers has not commented publicly on the living wage issue, and although students and faculty might consider it poor form for Summers to ignore the committee's recommendations, he is under no obligation to implement them.

However, the PSLM took an issue that most students were apathetic about and, in three weeks, turned it into a national movement. PSLM united janitors and students, Faculty and dining hall workers, staff and Cantabrigians in a giant attempt to pressure the University into granting a living wage.

It succeeded beyond its promoters' wildest dreams: the largest crowds in more than a decade filled the Yard. On some nights, 100 people slept out in the "tent city."

"The living wage is no longer a student concern. The living wage movement is no longer a student movement," McOwen said at yesterday's rally.

If PSLM is unhappy with the committee's recommendations, they will still have the support on-campus to push for more changes. Perhaps, though, one cheer during yesterday's rally might be prescient.

At one point, the crowd of PSLM supporters chanted, "We'll be back, we'll be back."

"Everyone recognizes this is just the first step in the process," Feigin said.

--Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.