Lawrence H. Summers remained silent last April while students from the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) occupied his future office demanding a “living wage” for Harvard employees.

The economist—selected the previous month to lead Harvard—let then-University President Neil L. Rudentstine take the lead in negotiating a settlement to the protest.

But the compromise—the formation of a joint student-staff committee to study the wage issue—has left Summers to make the final decision on Harvard’s wages.

And as Summers slowly breaks his silence over the living wage issue, concern is increasing among members of PSLM that the changeover bodes ill for their cause. Alongside the fear, however, is an even greater feeling of anticipation, as PSLM members wait to see where Summers will fall on the wage issue.

The 20-member Katz committee will deliver a set of recommendations to Summers by Dec. 19 on how best to benefit Harvard’s lowest-paid workers. At that point, Summers will choose the University’s course of action.

“All eyes will be on Summers and how he handles this,” says PSLM member Madeleine S. Elfenbein ’04.

The Economist

When group members staged a protest last March in front of the Loeb House press conference announcing Summers’ appointment, they criticized both the presidential search process and Summers’ record on labor issues.

At an Undergraduate Council meeting Summers attended last spring, a student asked the new president his opinion of the mandatory wage floor, PSLM member Stephen N. Smith ’02 remembers.

According to Smith, Summers gave the student a hypothetical situation—if the student could get 80 applicants willing to work for $500 per week, 60 applicants willing to work for $400 per week or 30 applicants willing to work for $300 per week, which 20 applicants would the student hire?

Smith says he was perturbed by the response.

“It seems Summers has this knee-jerk reaction to value efficiency over anything else,” he says.

But Smith also notes that Summers has used the same principles of efficiency to advocate for higher wages for workers—to increase company loyalty and decrease job turn-over and training costs.

He says he worries, however, that Summers’ training as an economist could make him even less willing than Rudenstine to implement a mandatory wage floor.