Hunger Strikers End Nine-Day Fast

The nine students staging a hunger strike in protest of the wages paid to Harvard’s security guards ended their nine-day fast on Friday afternoon.

Protesters met with top Mass. Hall administrators Friday morning. After that meeting, security guards asked students to end the strike, according to a statement from the group sponsoring the protests, Stand for Security Coalition.

The statement added that the University agreed to honor “two key student demands” at the Friday meeting.

The students demanded that the University issue a statement affirming its commitment to its workers, and asked for the formation of an independent committee of workers, students, faculty, and administrators to provide a short-term assessment of AlliedBarton's wages and benefits on campus, according to hunger striker J. Claire Provost ’07.

The University announced earlier this week that it had asked for an expedited audit of AlliedBarton , the subcontractor that employs Harvard's guards, to ensure that the company is following Harvard's Wage and Benefits Parity Policy which requires outside contractors to pay their employees wages similar to those received by in-house unionized employees who perform the same work.

According to a letter released Friday to the Student Action Labor Movement by Vice President for Human Resources Marilyn Hausammann, the audit is expected to be completed this upcoming week.

"We will share the results of the audit broadly," the letter says. "We will meet as soon as possible after the audit is complete."

The parity policy was adopted in 2002 at the recommendation of the Katz Committee, which was formed in to address the issue of wages and working conditions for service workers at the University.

Provost said the new committee will build upon the Katz Committee, which she said lacked good implementation mechanisms.

“It's another step forward to have institutional accountability,” she said.