On a beautiful spring afternoon this May, a handful of student activists colored a banner proclaiming "Contract Now" while the security guards they were fighting for watched from the crowd.

Although their rally was organized by the Living Wage Campaign, the demonstrators did not call for a $10 minimum wage--most security guards already earn more than $10 an hour--but instead focused on the issue of the University's negotiating tactics with its unions.

Unions charge that with the University's $13 billion and growing endowment, workers should share the wealth as members of the Harvard community. The world's richest university has a "moral obligation" to its employees, according to Steve G. McCombe, president of the Harvard University Security, Parking and Museum Guards Union.

The security guards and several other unions charge that Harvard has failed this moral test, using the threat of outsourcing jobs to weaken workers' bargaining power and force them to accept reduced benefits.

But University officials counter that their behavior is dictated by economic realities and hardly unusual. Labor experts agree--Harvard's accustomed tactics are legal and even typical for a business of its size.

And so those who still condemn Harvard's negotiating tactics say that the University should be held to an even higher standard As a non-profit organization, as a research University, as a gateway to the company of educated men and women, they say it has a responsibility to do more than is required by law or the economy.

254 Down the Drain

Nearly three years after signing a contract with Harvard, Local 254 of the Service Employees International Union, which includes much of Harvard's janitorial staff, remains bitter about the results.

In the 1996 contract, the union lost vacation time, lost seventh day double pay, lost the security that comes with seniority, and saw many of its other benefits reduced.

Local 254 officials and Harvard negotiators would not speak publicly about the negotiation process. Allegations abounded that the union's leadership was too disorganized to negotiate effectively or was too cozy with the Harvard administration.

But other Harvard unions speculate that 254 accepted such a bargain because the alternative was losing their jobs due to outsourcing.

"We went into this meeting [in September 1996, after a period of unsuccessful negotiations], and the union told us that we could all be out of jobs," says a long-time 254 employee. "The University has been threatening to outsource jobs for years."

And now workers say they are stuck with a deal no one likes.

"We used to have 15 sick days, the University took five days off, now we only have 10," a 254 worker in the Science Center says. "I know some custodians who used to take a month off. Now they have two weeks."

Sold Down the River