Katz Committee Adjourns to Gather Data

The protesters, the media, the police and even Tent City are all long gone. Now, the work begins.

Months after this spring’s three-week protest by the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) that spawned its beginning, the committee charged with investigating the state of workers on campus is hard at work.

The committee, chaired by Professor of Economics Lawrence Katz, has spent its first two months gathering data, talking to members of the Harvard community and preparing for a fall of “intensive” weekly meetings, according to Katz.

After its first meeting in early June, the committee has adjourned for the summer to gather data and work on speaking to various members of the community who will be affected by the report.

Members of the committee are gathering data about the status of employees at Harvard, the University’s contracting and outsourcing procedures and practices and looking more broadly at the history of the “living wage” movement and its implementation in other areas of the country.

While the committee has many examples of the living wage in other locales, like that of the City of Cambridge or the City of Baltimore where the movement began in the early 1990s, the committee is finding itself hampered by the lack of data from other institutions of higher education, Katz says.

“There aren’t many university examples,” he says.

The committee is also busy readying a website that will keep the public informed of the committee’s meetings and plans, and beginning to organize public forums for the fall when community members will be able to speak on the living wage issue.

Benjamin L. McKean ’02, a member of PSLM and one of two student representatives on the panel, says he is excited about the broad mandate given the committee by former University President Neil L. Rudenstine—the committee can examine everything from hours to employment status to wages.

And while the University and PSLM have been at odds in the past, both the committee and PSLM have at least one goal in common—working to make this year’s report more inclusive than that of the last committee to examine the living wage issue.

The Mills Committee of 1999 was criticized by PSLM for not interviewing workers and other staff during its investigation.

This summer will be largely given over to speaking to people around the community and the University and gathering data before the committee begins its deliberations in the fall.

“The committee is working now to include outreach to other constituencies, we’re bringing people into the process rather than dealing with who’s already there,” McKean says.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.