Denying Wages and Outsourcing Blame

The Living Wage Campaign returned to prominence this week, as a rally last Friday and an endorsement by the Kennedy School of Government student government put more pressure on the University and its Living Wage taskforce. The University is expected to respond to janitorial demands for a $10-per-hour wage on Nov. 1. Yet if Harvard's past is any indication, the University will outsource yet another non-educational university function, and the Living Wage Campaign will be handed another defeat. And soon after that a strange thing may happen: without improving the compensation for those who work at Harvard, the University may be able to claim a payroll compliant with the Cambridge Living Wage initiative. The Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) must make students aware of these machinations and focus attention on the outsourcers as well as Harvard itself.

Outsourcing is the sort of end-run move that keeps members of the PSLM up at night and helps University officials rest easier. Through outsourcing, the University has been able to improve on its statistics, which show that 2.7 percent of full-time employees on the University's payroll are paid less than $10 an hour. But these figures hide the amount of outsourced employees that do janitorial work in some Harvard buildings and that have replaced the guards at the Houses. These workers, employees of UNICCO Service Company and Security Systems Incorporated, respectively, stand side-by-side Harvard payroll employees in kitchens, restaurants and some janitorial duties, yet have neither a $10-an-hour wage nor a clear voice to fight for one.

Harvard now signs a contract with the outsourcing agency, not a group that represents the workers. It then gives the outsourcer the responsibility of managing and paying the workforce, in order to wash its hands of often acrimonious negotiations, as well as perhaps to improve living-wage statistics while polishing up the bottom line. Though the UNICCO janitors do have a union--a separate bargaining unit in the same SEIU Local 254 where the Harvard-payroll janitors are members--their agreements must be made with UNICCO, not Harvard. Come Nov. 1, the other group of janitors may join that list.

So what is to be done? The unions are gone and done for, but the remaining jobs on Harvard's payroll--these janitors included--can and must be raised to meet the $10-an-hour level. The PSLM still has much to say, and Friday's rally, with Cambridge Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55 on hand to challenge the University, should perk up ears somewhere. "The University sets an example for us all," the mayor said. "They set an example for businesses, corporations, MIT--everyone looks to this institution." Compliance with the Living Wage Campaign will help, even symbolically, improve town-gown relations and help the city reach its goal of total compliance for all employers in Cambridge, yet it will be an unacceptable whitewash if Harvard achieves compliance by outsourcing workers paid below a living wage.

I tried to contact company officials at UNICCO and SSI, Harvard's current outsourcers, with mixed success. SSI referred me to their president, Ed Silvey, who repeatedly did not return my calls. Walter W. Crow, the in-house counsel for UNICCO, faxed me a statement that "UNICCO pays its full time employees throughout Cambridge a wage not less than $9.20 an hour" and that they also receive pension and health insurance. "Part time employees receive not less than $8.25," he wrote, and "all employees receive paid vacations, jury duty pay, bereavement pay, personal days, and holidays." Adding these up, Crow contended "The combined value of wage and benefits exceeds $10 per hour... UNICCO believes itself to be already in compliance with the Cambridge Living Wage campaign."

Aaron D. Bartley, a member of the PSLM in his second year at Harvard Law School, agreed with the figures UNICCO gave but said in an e-mail "They failed to mention that almost all their workers are part-time (not by choice), that part-timers don't have health benefits." He also said that UNICCO workers have told him that they don't take vacations because they are scared they'll lose their jobs. These employees in forced part-time status not only do not receive a living wage but also have no way to express their grievances without fear of reprisal. Here the double loss of outsourcing is most evident: these employees have neither a voice nor a living wage.

Amy C. Offner '01, another member of the Living Wage Campaign, explained that the Cambridge initiative was calculated for full-time workers receiving some benefits--and that a $10 wage is a necessity over and above any benefits.

"The Living Wage Campaign does not view UNICCO's employment practices as satisfactory," Bartley said. "We're demanding a $10 minimum in addition to a set of minimal health benefits." Though important for the worker's overall well-being, benefits cannot be compared to wages, Offner said. She stressed that a large number of workers only receive wages and those who receive benefits shouldn't be penalized since, as she put it, "no matter how many dental appointments Harvard gives its workers, you can't pay rent in dental appointments."

Rallying in front of the John Harvard statue, PSLM protesters must influence voices far from the Yard, who, after a contract is signed, may sit back and take no notice of how the salaries impact the lives of their employees. Outsourced employees, it seems, are dispensable enough.

If the Living Wage Campaign is to be successful, the PSLM and its supporters must turn the focus to companies like SSI and UNICCO that keep the salaries of those employed by the University at less than the living wage. In this stage of the fight, the Living Wage Campaign has lost the iconic power of John Harvard, Heartless Employer, but must make its call heard in the executive offices of the outsourcers. Only when the outsourcers are made to comply can the campaign consider itself successful.

Adam I. Arenson '00-'01 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.