Getting To Know You

Quick, name five people in your House. But there’s one restriction: no administrators, tutors, masters, proctors or students. Also descriptions such as “the black guy at the grille” or “the eastern European lady who swipes my meal card” do not count. This task should be an easy one—these are people whom we see at least once a day and yet many of us would be unable to meet this basic challenge.

Late last month, the Service Employees International Union Local 254 and Harvard University finally agreed on a proposal that would raise the wages of all University janitors to a minimum of $11.35 per hour—a figure that will increase incrementally until it reaches $13.50 by 2005. Although we must commend the workers and all others who have been involved in this painstaking ordeal, we cannot quickly decree that victory and justice have come to Harvard. This whole process seems to suffer from a rather interesting paradox: There are more students than workers at Living Wage rallies yet more workers than students at Worker Appreciation Day.

Although the Progressive Student Labor Movement has avowed that garnering respect for workers is its ultimate goal, their tactics have focused almost entirely on raising wages. While a fundamental aspect of any employee’s dignity, poor salaries are not the only explanation for why workers’ employment experiences here at Harvard sometimes leave them feeling less than human. No matter how tempting it is to lay the blame on University President Lawrence H. Summers or members of the Harvard Corporation, they are not the people who leave trays out on tables in the dining hall in the rush to get to class on time. Nor do they lazily trample through freshly-swept piles of dirt, too apathetic to worry about the new messes that they have tracked across the floor. They are not the ones who refuse to take a mere five seconds out of an otherwise hectic day to say “good morning” to the dining hall staff or to smile at the groundskeeper when they walk past. We have met the enemy and it is not Summers, the Corporation or any other morally defunct administrative figure—it is we.

If college really is our home away from home, then surely the people who prepare our meals, ensure our safety and pay attention to the minute details that allow our lives to run smoothly must be considered family. Eliot House recently took the time out to celebrate a member of the dining hall staff as more than just a worker. After throwing a reception in her honor, they discovered that their beloved Marina Gerolimatas is not just a friendly face around the House but also an amazing artist. Some of her paintings now hang in the Memorial Dining Room and bestow beauty and grace to a small dining annex that would otherwise have remained unadorned.

We often claim that Harvard’s greatest asset is its people but then too easily forget a bulk of the individuals who make up this community. Workers at Harvard are every bit as valuable as students, faculty or administrators. Treating them with benign neglect is simply not acceptable. We should all learn the names of and get to know the workers whom we see on a daily basis. As we surely must appreciate what they do for us, we ought to let them know that we care. And we should do this not for a couple of extra fries at lunch but because these men and women are integral to our Harvard experiences. After all, if you cannot love your family, whom can you love?