Nearly 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) began a sit-in at Massachusetts Hall at 1:30 p.m. yesterday, planning to remain indefinitely in the administrative building to demand a living wage of at least $10.25 per hour for all Harvard employees.
PSLM members said their protest-strategically located in the building housing the office of University President Neil L. Rudenstine-also demands that the University join the Worker's Rights Consortium, an independent factory monitoring board.
Student activists-mostly undergraduates, with about a dozen graduate students-entered the building easily from the basement of Matthews Hall, armed with bags of food and tanks of water.
They secured themselves in the halls of the building by linking arms while singing, chanting and reading testimony from Harvard workers.
By 5 p.m. yesterday, all administrators with offices in the building had trickled out of Mass. Hall-leaving only protesters and Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) officers to occupy the building.
Rudenstine exited Mass. Hall at approximately 4 p.m. and Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 left unobtrusively an hour later. Both administrators declined comment as they walked through the shouting crowds from the building.
About six HUPD members remained in the building throughout the afternoon, while another several spread out, monitoring the crowds outside.
At least four police cars parked in the Yard outside Mass. Hall.
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