Harvard Can And Should Put Moral Duty First

To the editors,



Harvard’s vice president for human resources has responded to the current hunger strike for Harvard’s security guards by arguing that “Harvard has no legal role in this process” (Harvard Will Not Intervene, May 7, 2007). In that very same article however, she acknowledges that “AlliedBarton is fully subject to the Wage and Benefit Parity Policy” Harvard adopted after a sit-in for a living wage.

After thousands of students, workers and faculty members protested in Harvard Yard (and more than 40 inside of Massachusetts Hall) in 2001, Harvard finally admitted that it does have the ability and moral duty to pay its workers fairly and to forgo anti-union tactics. At the time, Harvard placed a moratorium on outsourcing until it could guarantee that its subcontractors would not undercut the working conditions of its unionized employees.

Harvard can choose to require AlliedBarton to pay security guards more fairly and prevent arbitrary dismissals or punitive scheduling decisions. It could easily enforce the Wage and Benefit Parity Policy and strengthen it to prevent other harmful labor practices. Instead, it chooses to deny responsibility for campus workers by hiring a separate management company to do its dirty work. SEIU’s only opportunity to organize outsourced workers is to place accountability on those who hire the subcontractors, as this campaign is doing and as they have done in Justice for Janitors campaigns around the country.

If Harvard refuses to admit that it can control the practices of its subcontractors, then it is time for Harvard to end the practice of outsourcing altogether and to employ security guards directly. It is time to stop denying our community’s responsibility to ensure that a Harvard education is not predicated on poverty in the midst of our prosperity.



ARI Z. WEISBARD ‘02

Cambridge, Mass.

May 7, 2007



The writer, a former Crimson staff member, participated in the living wage sit-in in 2001.