Studenter- og arbejderaktion på Harvard University

Studenter har bosat administrationens bygninger og arrangeret en række

møder og demonstrationer på universitetet i protest. Harvard

University, som uddanner en del af den absolutte elite i USA, er blot endnu

et universitet i USA hvor studenter er gået i aktion under "Living

Wage" parolen. Denne gang er det sket samtidig med FTAA-protesterne i Quebec,

og aktionen skal også ses i lyset af den stadig voksende politiske

aktivisme og "globaliserings"- modstand indenfor supermagtens grænser.

Mere info: www.livingwagenow.com

Udtalelse fra de aktionerende studenter:

Statement from the Harvard Sit-In

By Matthew Abelson and Faisal Chaudhry

After two and one-half weeks of sitting in at Harvard University’s administrative

headquarters

in Massachusetts Hall, calling for the Harvard Corporation and President

Neil Rudenstine to

institute a Living Wage policy for all its employees, it is, perhaps,

inevitable that the

attention of the mainstream media would drift away from the issue at

hand and towards the less

significant "human interest" dimension of this event. Though questions

about personal hygiene can

seem amusing, their obvious frivolousness speaks to a wider lesson

we all would do ourselves well

to learn about the way media tends to respond to acts of collective

resistance to socio-economic

injustice. For if anything can now obscure the underlying moral critique

motivating our sit-in,

it is most likely to be a concerted "effort" to shift focus from the

reality of poverty amidst

incredible wealth to the story of "the Mass Hall 48" and their ongoing

sit-in. Thus while all of us

inside the building could not help but be thankful for New York Times

columnist Bob Herbert’s second

op-ed piece on the matter within the last week (5/3/01 "Harvard’s Heroes"),

few of us enjoy

indulging in the characterization its headline offers. Not only do

we know that our "heroism"

pales in comparison to that demonstrated daily by the thousands of

low-wage service workers at

Harvard who must struggle to make ends meet, we also believe that such

a shift in focus is

particularly unhelpful given the way it reinforces the university’s

preferred indifference to

substantive issues related to its workers’ well-being.

Returning to focus, then, we should point out that as we move towards

our third week sitting in, the

fundamental issue remains the status of some 1500 individuals who now

earn less than a living wage -

currently $10.25 an hour, as defined by the Cambridge City Council’s

equivalent municipal

ordinance. These individuals fall into various categories of formal

employment relationships with

Harvard. While some are unionized dining hall workers represented by

HERE Local 26 who work

directly for the university, others are recently subcontracted unionized

custodians represented by

SEIU Local 254 whose wages have been cut as a result of outsourcing

to lower paying contracted

firms. Amongst the hundreds of others who are non-unionized some are

subcontracted workers

employed by the likes of Sodexho-Marriott while many others fall under

the heading of casual

employees. In fact, this very diversity reflects one of the more disturbing

tendencies in Harvard’s

labor practices as they have increasingly centered on contractually

shifting the university’s labor

supply and moral responsibility to invisible and almost entirely unaccountable

subcontracted

companies. While these practices go a long way towards cutting "costs"

and dismantling trade

unionism on campus, in at least equal measure they help explain why

there is such a dire need for a

Living Wage at Harvard, as both a substantive gain in the lives of

the lowest paid people here as

well as a symbolic gain affirming a larger commitment to treating all

members of this

community with greater dignity. It would also represent an enormous

step forward in expanding

the broader Living Wage movement nationwide from the municipal sector

to one of the more

substantial corners of the private sector represented by our institutions

of higher

education. Like other sit-ins of the past few years, including one

that lasted 17 days at Johns

Hopkins University on the Living Wage issue last year, such acts have

both been motivated by and

illuminated much about the internal structure of even the most "open"

of the elite institutions of

power in our society.

Thus, while our universities often spout rhetoric about democratic ideals

and free and open

discussion - as President Rudenstine himself has repeatedly indicated

- they are often run in an

anti-democratic, top-down manner. To the degree that this is true we

believe that campus student

labor movements harbor the seeds of a much more powerful critique of

our institutions in general.

For as we have seen over the course of the last few years and especially

the last few weeks,

deferring all significant decision-making to a few top administrators

undermines internal democracy

and necessarily weakens any sense of community. When the institutions

at issue are our

universities, this is of particular concern because without a genuine

affirmation of community

that recognizes even the least well-off as full members, little remains

to distinguish them from

any of the other large and impersonal concentrations of power that

dominate our society.

Perhaps most encouragingly in these past weeks, even as our administration

has acted out this very

critique in refusing to engage in any meaningful dialogue with us,

we have had the honor and

privilege to see a fuller approximation of this ideal of community

assemble itself independently

as our dining workers, custodians, and groundskeepers have spoken out

at public rallies,

led marches, and collectively confronted decision-makers. As we have

heard these voices

ever more forcefully resound we have grown to believe that efforts

to silence them during coming

times of crucial decision and policy making on campus labor issues

will be all the more

difficult. This development bodes well not only for the future of broad-based

labor rights

campaigns on campuses across the country, but also for the educational

mission of our universities

where academic instruction is only one part of the learning process.

Accordingly, we feel that the last 17 days have served as an extended

exercise in mutual

education, as all of us have assembled to hear each other’s stories

and empathetically engage

with one another. Whether as workers, graduate students, undergraduates,

faculty members, trade

unionists, political leaders, or community members, we have all acquired

a better

understanding of each other and our potential capacity to change the

nature of the institution

in which we all now claim our collective stake. In closing, while our

main focus has been on the

immediate issue of fair treatment in our local community, it has been

difficult not to think

about these efforts within the context of the much larger struggle

for economic justice throughout

the world. Given that our sit-in commenced nearly simultaneously with

the latest episode of

collective response to the expansion of corporate globalization that

was taking place in Quebec

around the FTAA talks, it would be difficult to conclude our reflections

on the past few weeks at

Harvard without considering these wider connections. For in some sense

the community we

have seen emerge before our eyes through the cramped windows of Massachusetts

Hall has been

strongly reminiscent of those we have seen appear again and again since

the events in Seattle in

November 1999 during the WTO protests. Whether in our almost-constant

conversations with passers-by,

at the daily rallies and candlelight vigils that have drawn thousands

to this campus, or by looking

out on the "tent city" of supporters who have awakened Harvard Yard

by sleeping in it nightly,

we have encountered an enormously wide-ranging base of support. In

addition to those within the

university there has also been a large patchwork of outside supporters.

These have included not

only leaders of the AFL-CIO and numerous congressional representatives,

but also

anarchists, clergy, area globalization activists, and concerned citizens

of every stripe. Yet while

this diversity has proven reminiscent of that seen active in many of

the protest movements since

Seattle, witnessing the events at Harvard in the last few weeks has

underlined the inadequacy of

the lens most commonly used by our media. For the representation of

diversity that has been settled

upon since November 1999 seems to be a decidedly particular one of

self-assembling atoms joining

together merely as constituencies of self-interest lobbying in mass

for their individual causes. Much

to the contrary, what we have seen over and over again while staring

out the windows of

Massachusetts Hall is the development of a community of moral agency

informed not by

self-interest but by a simple sense of right and wrong that sees with

utmost clarity the dignity to

which every individual working for Harvard is entitled.

Matthew Abelson and Faisal Chaudhry, on behalf of the Harvard Living

Wage Campaign, from inside Massachusetts Hall 5/4/01
For more information

and how you can help see www.livingwagenow.com