THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS WAGE POLICY

In the last sixty days the University has given two wage increases to low-paid employees, and it shortly faces the necessity of taking a stand on the A. F. of L. bid for a closed shop among the dining-hall workers. The suddenness of this activity and the fact that it coincides with a drive for unionization make the gestures look much like barn-locking after the horse is stolen. Thus caught napping at first base Harvard must find out why its wage policy leaves the University open to union drives, and whether or not, in fact, it has an up-to-date wage policy at all.

It is axiomatic that Harvard's attitude towards wages must reflect the nature of the University and its position in the country. The deduction from this statement is that, unlike many public institutions and itself at times in the past, Harvard cannot abuse its reputation by using the steadiness of its employment as the excuse for any labor conditions below standard. For example, until the latest increases the dining-hall employees were paid below the most liberal rates outside, and even the increases leave the waitresses poorly paid if they are compared with workers in the best restaurants. Likewise, Harvard cannot be content as it seems to be well-content, that its working conditions equal those outside.

Most of the service employees of the University, including the maintenance department, grounds keepers, and library-workers, have earnings a little higher than similar labor outside. The satisfaction with which the University regards this situation points to the most serious failing in its labor policy. Harvard feels that so long as its wages are equal to the most liberal wages outside, or a little better, that it is doing its part. Thus the University has no mind of its own on a good labor problem, and accepts the standards set outside regardless of their rightness or wrongness.

For the University to pay no attention to its labor relations, so long as they are no worse than those outside, means that Harvard accepts the present state of industrial relations without question. Herein the University is discovered to be hiding from its right hand what its left hand is doing. Over and over in History, Government, and Economics is taught the importance of the labor problem and the unsatisfactoriness of the present armed truce between labor and capital in this country. It is good that professors debate what wages ought to be paid and how labor ought to be handled; but more effective than the words is the fact, more valuable than the preaching is the practice. In research, in education, and in diffusion of culture, Harvard tries to be the leader, and never satisfied with the present, strives to perfect its technique and reach the ultimate best. In handling its employees, it is a slave to other corporations practices.

A change in its attitude towards labor is needed by the University. It must recognize that it is expected to be a leader in solving the troubles of labor, though this does not mean pell-mell acceptance of the closed shop until labor is prepared for that move. It must recognize that a passive attitude of accepting what other people do is not worthy of Harvard or likely to solve the greatest industrial problem of the present. For example, Harvard should have been one of the first to work out an Old Age Pension Plan instead of being one of the corporations that yielded when the whole country was talking about the inevitability of the scheme. An active, positive attitude towards finding how labor ought to be treated is called for, and not a policy of waiting until the country creeps ahead and then catching up in a public fluster.

Clearly if the University is to make itself an example of a progressive and liberal employer, it is going to spend more money on service than in the past. The students will have to pay part and the alumni must help, remembering their embarrassment when, during Lowell's administration, the pittance given the scrubwomen was printed throughout the country. If Harvard is to become a part of the best in American civilization, it should treat its people just as solicitously as it does its knowledge, nor in striving for the intellectual can it let its feet turn to clay.