Stretching a Dollar
The term "living wage" seems not to have an exact economic definition. The campaign uses it to mean enough money to "live decently and raise [one's] family." It seems generally accepted to mean enough wages for a worker to live a safe distance above the poverty line--including costs like child care, housing and transportation.
Harvard spokesperson Joe Wrinn says this question makes setting a concrete living wage for Harvard workers a contentious and inexact task.
"Employment is more complicated than a single phrase or a single wage," Wrinn says. "We all want the same things: fair and competitive wages and equitable benefits."
Janet McGill, project director of the Massachusetts Project for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency, says a living wage for Middlesex and Norfolk counties (including Cambridge) means $8.11 an hour for a single adult, and $17.47 an hour for an adult with one child. "There is no way I could live in Cambridge. Aone-bedroom apartment would cost more than 50percent of my take-home pay," says M. Steve Fritz,a Fogg Museum central station monitor who makes$11.85 an hour. Middlesex County is in many places moreaffluent than other parts of the Boston area. But,though across the river in Suffolk County therequirements are less, McGill says a living wagethere is $7.52 per hour for a single adult, and$18.54 per hour for an adult with one child. But it is hard to draw firm conclusions fromthese even this data, because the University hasnot been able to gather figures on how many of itsemployees have families. A Casual Problem While a majority of Harvard's employees areunion members, the number of casual employeesdraws ire not only from the Living Wage Campaign,but also from union organizers. Wrinn says the University sees the casualworkforce as a potential foot in the door forworkers who may be only to start workingpart-time, but eventually can graduate tofull-time status. Over 1,200 of Harvard's currentfulltime employees came from the casual ranks. But for the campaign, casual workers representa segment of the Harvard workforce that iscontinually vulnerable. And to the union organizers from the HarvardUnion of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW)the casual workforce is not just a stepping stonefor workers, but also a method for Harvard todivide up one regular, benefit-paying job into twopart-time non-benefit paying jobs. "They have taken regular jobs and broken theminto two [casual] jobs," says Donene M. Williams,treasurer and past president of HUCTW. Williams also says she believes the Universityuses the casual work force as a no-man's-land ofemployment where workers are always temporary. "There's a legitimate use of the casualworkers; it's the misuse of casual payroll whichworries me. I do take issue with people who areworking for more than three months and peopleworking endlessly in casual jobs," Williams says. And other union officials say Harvard recentlyhas been moving in the opposite direction fromwage increases with all of its workers. When Local 254 of the Service EmploymentInternational Union renegotiated the contract forHarvard's custodial staff in the fall of 1996, theresult was an agreement in which wages were frozenand benefits slashed. The benefits of seniority were eliminated, aswas time-and-a-half holiday pay and other wageperks. Union officials say the threat of outsourcingwas always present--and continues to be a way forthe University to get leverage over dissatisfiedgroups of employees