If PSLM really wants to ennoble Harvard’s workers, how about giving them some agency in fighting injustice? PSLM makes one crucial point: the fact that Harvard outsources to non-union labor is not only exploitative but also cowardly. Make unionization the primary focus of the campaign, and forget about trying to impose an arbitrary wage standard.

Once Harvard workers are unionized, they will be empowered to stand up for themselves and fight for the wages and benefits they deserve. If they decide to strike, then let us students rally behind them and support them with all our resources until the administration meets their demands. That is the only way we can express our appreciation for the services these workers provide without simultaneously robbing them of their dignity.

Jack E. Caughran ’03

April 20, 2001

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Harvard Won’t Listen

To the editors:

In “The PSLM Must Go” (Editorial, April 20), the staff’s proposed alternative to PSLM’s ongoing occupation of Mass. Hall is for the University to “establish and maintain a policy of open dialogue.” You fail to note that dialogue with the administration has been actively pursued by the Living Wage campaign since its inception. Time and time again it has failed.

The administration will enact change only when it is publicly—and repeatedly—humiliated. Bad press is anathema to its image. The Crimson has regretfully chosen to focus on PSLM protesters and to mischaracterize them as a “circus-like” group of noisy, disruptive students.

In effect, the staff has touted the noble values of liberal education—of rational deliberation, of open dialogue, of mutual respect—in defense of an administration that has undermined those values in its refusal to engage with students and workers—let alone enact a living wage.

Adam Christian ’01

April 20, 2001

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Unequal Coverage

To the editors: