More Than Parity

Over the past eight months, the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP) has made an amazing amount of progress. It has moved the campus away from the acrimony and conflict that marked the Massachusetts Hall protests last spring to a shared and earnest desire to improve the economic conditions of Harvard’s low-wage employees. The committee’s recommendations are sound, and Summers should move promptly to implement them. However, the president should also move on his own initiative to adopt an additional safeguard: an annually adjusted wage floor that guarantees an adequate standard of living to all of Harvard’s workers.

We have repeatedly supported the concept of a living wage that takes into account external measures of need. Harvard has the responsibility to ensure that its employees are not impoverished. In his statement reacting to the HCECP report, Summers expressed a concern for the welfare and living standards of Harvard’s service workers. This concern should lead him not only to adopt the committee’s recommendations, but also to adopt a policy of paying wages that allow employees living in the Boston area to afford the basic necessities of life.

The HCECP’s recommendations—including a one-time increase in wages, heightened emphasis on collective bargaining and a policy of wage parity between direct employees and those of on-campus contractors—will all do a great deal to improve conditions for workers at Harvard. Yet there is no reason for the committee to artificially impose a trade-off between the living wage and other benefits Harvard could offer. The University can give its workers both a living wage and parity, and it should do so as soon as possible.

The report correctly noted that without a policy of parity, a living wage floor could easily become a wage ceiling, should Harvard seek through outsourcing to push wages down to the minimum level. But with a policy of parity, the living wage would serve only as an emergency backstop to prevent wages from falling below acceptable levels. There is little data to support claims that a living wage would lead to job loss or to a replacement of current low-paid workers by those who had already earned higher wages. And in any case, these concerns would apply equally to higher wages achieved through union negotiations as to higher wages achieved through a guaranteed wage floor. The HCECP’s concerns regarding a living wage in a vacuum provide few arguments against adopting a living wage in concert with its other proposals, as is urged in concurring statements by eight members of the committee.

We agree with the HCECP and with Summers’ recent statements that collective bargaining is an appropriate means of setting the terms and conditions of employment. However, we do not believe that the living wage should be a bargaining chip in union negotiations. Harvard’s workers should never be placed in a position of trading away other benefits in order to obtain minimally adequate wages. Harvard should safeguard employees’ living standards by adopting a living wage.

None of this, however, should detract from the committee’s significant accomplishments, most notably the recommendation of parity. Outsourcing certain services makes economic sense for a university whose primary business will always be education. But Harvard must take care not to use outsourcing as a means of lowering wages or of dividing and weakening the unions that represent workers. The policy of parity will remove any incentive Harvard might have to undercut union-negotiated wages in this way.

The HCECP also deserves praise for calling attention to what appears to be a pervasive climate of mistrust. If Harvard’s workers are not aware of their rights or are afraid to exercise them for fear of retaliation by management, something is terribly wrong. As the committee noted, Harvard should not reduce workers’ hours in order to avoid paying them appropriate benefits; it also should not act in ways that frustrate the attempts of workers to join unions, nor should it hire contractors who do so.

The information gathered by the HCECP, though at times limited, was vital to an informed campus debate on Harvard’s employment policies. The process followed by the committee should serve as a strong precedent for a community role in future University decisionmaking. It should also be used as a model for a permanent standing committee to gather and release data on Harvard’s wage structure, as well as to make non-binding recommendations to the administration for improvements. Harvard already has a permanent committee to make sure that the University meets its responsibilities as a shareholder; it should do the same with regard to its responsibilities as an employer, and a standing committee would be the best way of ensuring that the campus stays informed.

Summers has stated that he will be reviewing the proposals and soliciting input from members of the Harvard community until Jan. 18, after which the administration will announce its plans for reform. We encourage all students to provide their input to the University, but we also call on Summers to provide an organized forum through which students can make their voices heard. The town-hall-style meeting held by former President Neil L. Rudenstine during the “Days of Dialogue,” though not ideal, would still be superior to a single e-mail account.

More importantly, however, we strongly urge Summers to adopt the committee’s recommendations. To do anything less would not only sell Harvard’s workers short, but would also risk a return of the distrust that rent the campus last spring. The adoption of a living wage would significantly improve conditions for many Harvard employees, and it would be a significant step towards showing that Harvard indeed has a humane concern for the welfare of all those who work within its gates.