Save Harvard Jobs

Last December, President Faust warned the Harvard community that the administration would be taking a “hard look at hiring, staffing levels, and compensation.” In the past, Harvard’s “hard looks” have hit workers hardest, resulting in layoffs, outsourcing, and unlivable wages for Harvard’s service employees. Yet resistance from workers and students has kept Harvard accountable for its questionable labor practices and allowed for the implementation of many policies and contracts that adequately compensate employees for their work.

One such policy is the Wage and Benefit Parity Policy that guarantees outsourced workers the same compensation and treatment as those employees hired directly by Harvard. The policy purports that outsourcing is used “to increase quality and spark innovation, not to adversely affect the wages and benefits of Harvard’s own service employees.” Despite Harvard’s reluctance to hire in-house, the Parity Policy has been an important and laudable effort by Harvard to express its commitment to workers’ rights for all employees on campus regardless of who signs their paychecks.

Unfortunately, this policy has not protected outsourced workers from becoming some of the first targets of layoffs. Last month, Harvard announced that it would cut 13 of 27 jobs contracted through American Cleaning Company at Harvard Medical School and would reduce some 30 to 40 percent of costs allocated to OneSource, the cleaning subcontractor for Harvard Real Estate properties. Only about 40 percent of Harvard’s custodial staff is directly hired, so similar measures at other schools and departments would drastically affect the overall custodial staffing levels. These cuts are part of a university-wide effort to reduce spending to compensate for the rumored $8 billion loss in Harvard’s endowment. Although additional layoffs of service employees have yet to be announced, many workers are bracing themselves for similar layoffs across all departments and schools.

We all must expect to make sacrifices during these uncertain times, but it is particularly troubling that Harvard has identified outsourced custodians as its first superfluous expense. By targeting the lowest-paid, least-valued, and mostly immigrant workers at this university, Harvard sends a clear message that some members of our community are more expendable than the next. Service employees made sacrifices so their families could live better in even the best of economies. They saw no perks or benefits, even when the endowment grew at astronomical rates. Yet they are the first to suffer now that university budgets are in crisis.

In addition to the obvious problem that layoffs pose for those who lose their jobs, it also impacts those “lucky” enough to have weathered the storm and retain their employment. With upcoming layoffs at Harvard Medical School totaling about 40 percent of the custodial staff, cuts will nearly double the amount of work for already overextended employees. Such overwhelming personnel cuts like those slated for the medical school campus are unacceptable and are disproportionally making custodians feel a harder pinch than the tightening of the belt that all parts of the university are facing.

Budget cuts will be hard for everyone, but a university that prides itself on being at the cutting edge of innovation and thought can surely find more creative ways to make up the deficit than laying off its lowest-paid workers, who need their jobs the most. Harvard must make a conscious effort to save as many jobs as possible and prioritize the livelihoods of those who work hard to keep Harvard working.

Beyond our own priorities as a university, Harvard must also recognize that it has an obligation to its neighbors and surrounding communities. As a recognized nonprofit, Harvard receives substantial tax breaks in return for providing educational services and stimulating local economies. Layoffs may allow Harvard to breathe easy, but in doing so they are simply shifting the burden of labor costs onto the cities of Boston and Cambridge and local taxpayers. Because Harvard is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts, any substantial layoffs at Harvard will dramatically affect neighboring communities—those that don’t have the most expensive money managers and billions of dollars in an endowment to jump-start their financial recovery. Harvard teaches its students to be responsible citizens, but there is nothing responsible about the richest university in the world conducting massive layoffs that will only add to the already hurting economy.

Today, workers are holding protests outside the offices of Labor Relations in Holyoke Center at 12:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Janitors, library workers, security guards, and dining-hall staff will come together to make visible the very real consequences of these potential layoffs. Hundreds of working people are refusing to be reduced to percentage points on Harvard’s budget charts and are fighting to keep the jobs on which they and their families depend.

As students, we should stand in solidarity with workers in these difficult and uncertain times. We must express to the Harvard administration that we are willing to make sacrifices so our friends can keep their jobs. Harvard’s educational mission should not only be an intellectual one, but also a moral one, that teaches us to put people over profits and value all members of our campus, whether they are using the classrooms or cleaning them. The strength of Harvard comes not from the rate of its endowment growth, but in the community of people that comprise it. The road ahead will be difficult, but only by collective sacrifice we will retain our community and begin the recovery process together.


Alyssa M. Aguilera ’08-09, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government concentrator in Dudley House. She is a member of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM).