For the past several weeks, 11 faculty members, three unionized Harvard employees, two administrators and four students have attended a unique course on wage policy and employment practices.

The 20 participants form the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies-—dubbed the “Katz Committee,” for its chair, Professor of Economics Lawrence Katz—and meet for two hours every week.

Since the committee’s founding last spring, members have compiled information on the wages of Harvard’s subcontracted employees, labor policies at other universities and the history of outsourcing at Harvard.

The committee’s deadline—a set of recommendations for wage policies due to University President Lawrence H. Summers by Dec. 19—is fast approaching.

“We have quite a tight schedule,” Katz says.

The Committee

The Katz Committee was born last spring out of the three-week-long occupation of Mass. Hall, home of the president’s office, by Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) members calling for a “living wage”—a mandatory wage floor of $10.25 per hour for all Harvard employees.

The committee is charged with deliberating on wage policies, outsourcing and the feasibility of a minimum wage floor for employees, which has long been PSLM’s main demand.

As committee members continue to collect facts, they have taken steps to increase campus involvement in the research and decision-making process.

“Obviously, my hope is to have as open a process as possible,” says Benjamin L. McKean ’02, a PSLM member and one of two student representatives voted onto the Katz Committee by the Undergraduate Council last spring.

To that end, committee members plan to hear from Harvard employees on what policies they think should be changed, and have scheduled a forum on the economics of poverty with professors over the next week.

They have also established a website, complete with brief profiles of committee members and a request for comments, that has already garnered a few responses. They also took out an ad in The Crimson on Monday inviting student input.

On Oct. 22, the committee will release preliminary findings and hear audience response at an evening event at the ARCO Forum.

“It’ll be a chance for members of the community to voice their views to us and to the broader community,” Katz says.

McKean says he will push for a mandatory wage floor that applies to all employees, not just those directly employed by Harvard. The distinctions between directly employed, outsourced and casual employees became a significant source of contention during the sit-in last spring.