Janitors’ Contract Is Only the Beginning

The fight for a better contract for janitors at Harvard in recent months catalyzed an outpouring of support from students and the community. More janitors were mobilized to fight for better jobs than at any other time in Harvard history. The new contract is a victory for Service Employees International Union Local 254, Harvard janitors, and the enormous group of living wage supporters and activists.

In the wake of this settlement, the future of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) seems up in the air. With workers having won wage increases higher than the living wage standard called for during the sit-in, some question why the group even continues to exist.

Yet the janitors’ contract is only the beginning of a much stronger student-labor movement on campus. PSLM has not come out of these negotiations placated, but instead is ready to expand its vision and fight even harder for a more just campus.

The new janitors’ contract itself shows the need for a stronger student labor movement. After months of pressure, including the arrest of nine people in an action of civil disobedience, Harvard was still able to keep wages at $11.35 per hour, basically settling with the union for the same wages proposed in their unofficial offer before the demonstration. This outcome shows the strength of the University’s resistance to change. Most janitors feel that $11.35 per hour is not enough money, as do many PSLM members and other activists. Under the new contract, some janitors, denied a raise for the last six years, still have to wait two or three years to get one. Many felt that the powerful student-labor movement we have built here could have won a lot more from Harvard. We will now work to make that movement even stronger.

The immediate first goal of PSLM is to help security guards and dining service workers win decent wages in their current or upcoming renegotiations of wages. There are still hundreds of security guards and dining service workers at Harvard earning below a “living wage” as defined by the City of Cambridge, which on March 1 was increased to $11.11 per hour. The guards have not received a raise in several years.

We must make sure that Harvard is not able to sweep these negotiations under the rug and deny these workers the money they deserve. Again, as the living wage campaign has progressed, it has become increasingly apparent through conversations with workers that the Cambridge wage figure is inadequate. And even if we were to consider this figure as a minimum, that does not mean that workers should accept it, since it was meant to serve only as a base from which to move up.

But PSLM has never just been about achieving a living wage. PSLM is an organization dedicated to the principle of solidarity between workers and students as we struggle for a more just and democratic University and society. The living wage campaign is only one form of this solidarity. Now the goal is to use the achievements of the living wage campaign, especially the increased consciousness about workers’ issues both among students and workers, to form an independent militant organization of students and workers to fight for more labor rights on this campus and throughout Cambridge. A sustained organization is necessary in order to ensure that the gains of the past year will not disappear a few years down the road, but will rather be expanded.

Focusing on workers around the world, the PSLM anti-sweatshop campaign, in the form of Harvard Students Against Sweatshops, is still fighting to get the University to join the Workers’ Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring organization to which more than 90 colleges and universities belong. There is an enormous, growing world-wide movement against the excesses of corporate globalization, and the struggles for living wages and against sweatshops are all a part of that movement.

On campuses throughout this country, students are standing in solidarity with workers in an attempt to gain more power and rights in their university communities. A movement is happening around the country, with student activism on the rise. Our film Occupation will be used to attempt to spur students and workers on more campuses to build alliances and take strong actions to bring more democracy to their campuses.

In the spirit of that movement, PSLM hopes to be part of a coalition of groups working together to democratize Harvard in the coming months.

As seen in various actions since his installation, University President Lawrence H. Summers has come to Harvard with very undemocratic beliefs and is pushing hard to diminish the power students and other members of the community have to impact policy. He announced his sit-in policy without any input from students, just one step in an attempt to crack down on and discourage protest at Harvard. The advisory board on the selection of the next dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences does not include students. Summers has metaphorically referred to the relationship between students and Harvard as similar to that between car buyers and General Motors, rather than important participants and stakeholders in the life and governance of the University. Movements for ethnic studies offerings, the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, groups concerned with Harvard’s investments and many others have a major stake in changing the way the university runs and fighting Summers’ attempted centralization of power.

All students have an interest in gaining real student representation in the University’s decisions. With the stepping down of Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Robert G. Stone ’45, now is an opportune time to push for democratization and possible student representation on the Corporation. This campaign for democracy will require an enormous education campaign to convince students that they deserve a say in the decisions and institutions that most fundamentally impact their life. Now is the time for PSLM and other groups at Harvard to step up their actions toward this goal.

Daniel DiMaggio ’04 is a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement.