Student protest at Harvard ends; "living wage" not achieved CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS--On May 8th, the Harvard student occupation of University Hall ended after negotiations with officials. President Rudenstine agreed to appoint a committee of 20 to look at the question of lower-paid workers on Harvard property in Massachusetts and reached agreement with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers while starting talks with two other unions. The students were struggling to achieve a $10.25 plus benefits minimum wage on Harvard property, but they consciously excluded the issue of workers hired by Harvard's $19 billion endowment in the Third World. The intensity of the student protests reached their greatest height since the 1960s. For 21 days it appeared that at least 100 people always milled around outside the protest. There is a big difference between a one-shot protest and a protest that more or less continuously mobilizes people. The university officials took the drastic step of closing Harvard Yard to all except members of Harvard. On May 1st, 2nd and 3rd, Harvard police asked for ids for all entering the patch of buildings behind ivy-covered wall known as Harvard Yard, despite the fact that thousands of tourists come through on an ordinary day, some after long trips from Japan and other places. Harvard University justified the clamp-down with typical demagogic anti-crime appeals. Philistine Dean Harry Lewis referred to a security guard's arrest of someone in Harvard Yard and said it "heightens our worries about security within Harvard Yard, and about the increased tension and turbulence that can result especially from the activities of individuals who are not members of the University community."(1) Students of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) occupying University Hall denied any connection to the incident and even went so far as to express sympathy for the guard who was supposedly slightly injured in the incident. The anti- crime appeal of the ruling class is a trick that any movement is going to have to learn how to navigate in order to succeed. Crime always stands as a reason for the ruling class to justify itself. Demagogue Lewis has no proof that crime was higher as a result of protests and no proof that even having security guards decreases crime. This demagoguery sticks out all the more in a university where such issues should be subjects of scientific inquiry, not tabloid level politicking alleging a cause and effect relationship based on one incident. We invite readers to look with MIM at the statistics and causes of crime. Even after shutting down Harvard Yard, Harvard found that more than 4 hours after the end of a demonstration, there were still 400 members of the Harvard community demonstrating loudly in Harvard Yard. May is "reading period" and "final" month at Harvard. It appears that only one-third of the students actually supported the sit-in by the end of April according to a poll by the Harvard Crimson. As MIM told protesters and contrary to what some rally supporters said, the protests did receive mainstream media coverage.(2) Anyone seeing the list of established bourgeois endorsers should have known that the media would receive the cue and show up in force as it did. In addition to the endorsement of over 400 faculty members, the demand also received the support of the two Massachusetts senators and the head of the Democratic Party nationally. The AFL-CIO, the main union in the United $tates had its president, vice-president and treasurer speak at rallies of over 1000 people on April 30th. Contrary to the coverage of protests at the Summit of the Americas (reported in MIM Notes #234, May 15, 2001), which neither of the imperialist parties supported, the "Living Wage" campaign at Harvard received extremely favorable press. The press coverage is indicative exactly of what is acceptable to the Establishment and what is not. Demanding higher wages for workers within U.$. borders--what MIM calls the left-wing of parasitism--is acceptable. MIM used the opportunity to gather petition signatures for Vietnamese workers exploited by Sears, Walmart and Target retailers. The next time, students should dig in their heels for a global minimum wage. Harvard owns and invests in companies operating in the Third World. Harvard should not invest in companies or accept as suppliers those companies that do not abide by a global minimum wage. That is a demand that students should spearhead. Notes: 1. Harvard Gazette 3May2001, p. 8. (Harvard's official propaganda organ.) 2. New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/09/national/09HARV.html?searc hpv=site04 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/national/25PROT.html ; http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/13/weekinreview/13WILG.html?s earchpv=nytToday Associated Press in Wall Street Journal, 25April2001. See also the Wall Street Journal's derisive Commentary, May 10, 2001.