City Honors PSLM With Peace Award

Amidst musical slide shows and poetic riffs from Cantabrigian storyteller "Brother Blue," the Fifth Annual Peace and Justice Awards presented by the Cambridge Peace Commission recognized the Progressive Student Labor Movement's (PSLM) campus efforts last night.

In a crowded reception hall of the Episcopal Divinity School on Brattle Street, nearly 30 people and several organizations received kudos and a standing ovation for their efforts as "peace and justice makers."

PSLM also received a City Council resolution commending the campaign's efforts.

PSLM' s efforts to combat the use of sweatshop labor in the production of University apparel over the last year were highlighted during a slide show presentation that referred to the March "Rally for Justice." Event organizers also praised the group's continuing efforts urging the University to disclose factory locations that produce Harvard paraphernalia.

The organization is also planning an upcoming "fashion show" to continue to pressure the University. The event will also publicize poor labor practices by Nike and The Gap.

Benjamin L. McKean '02 and Amy C. Offner '01, both PSLM organizers, received the award on behalf of the group.

The Peace Commission praised PSLM members' efforts to remove themselves from the academic ivory tower and agitate for worker's rights.

"The issues of sweatshops, globalization and the world outside of academia used to be very foreign to the transient and largely imported student body of Harvard University," wrote the Commission.

In a written statement in the program, Offner noted the irony in awarding a peace award to "a group that rallies...loudly against low-wage labor."

"We make life decidedly unpeaceful in Harvard Yard. Our work is rooted in an understanding that peace and justice are not served by restfulness and complacency," she wrote.

For PSLM, although the award was unexpected, it adds another feather to their cap.

"It helps give us a certain legitimacy with the Boston press, but I am not sure it will seriously impress the administration," McKean said.

McKean, however, did have one criticism.

"I was hoping the food would be better than dining hall food...[but] it was activist food," he said.