But Williams is careful to note that the living wage campaign is something PSLM decided to work for without any push from unions. After all, the majority of those earning less than a living wage are non-unionized workers.

?e want to be supportive without getting in their way,?Williams says.

And the cooperation strengthens the bargaining position of both groups.

For the unions, student activism calls attention to Harvard? wage policy, bringing the results of wage negotiations to the public? attention.

Similarly, union support lends a certain degree of legitimacy and authority to the student campaign.

Though HUCTW union members are already earning more than the living wage, Williams says she sees the campaign for a living wage as valuable.

?f it helps one worker, then it helps all workers somehow, by raising the threshold of what? acceptable,?Williams says.

Indeed, labor economists note that the collaboration between unions and local activists is a phenomenon seen particularly in successful living wage campaigns.

Neumark says unions would benefit from adopting a living wage, because a mandatory wage floor renders outsourcing?ontracting jobs to a private firm that often pays its workers less? less attractive option. Outsourcing is traditionally a threat to unions because it results in a loss of union jobs. But if employers were required to pay a wage near the union wage anyway, Neumark says, the impetus to outsource would greatly lessen.

?The living wage] strengthens the union? hand in negotiations,?Neumark says.

And some say unionized Harvard workers have already benefited from PSLM? actions. The agreement between PSLM and the Harvard administration that ended the sit-in included a clause that bans new outsourcing of labor until the ad hoc committee returns its report to Summers.

When the dining hall worker? contract came up for renegotiation just a week after the sit-in ended, Local 26 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) ratified a new contract that will raise the wages of all workers, as well as ensuring that no worker employed for more than one year will earn less than $10.25 per hour. Union leaders had agreed to strike if the agreement was not reached.

Union leaders called the agreement the biggest gain for workers in the history of Local 26. The negotiated wages and benefits will even apply to outsourced workers at the Business School.

The union organizers loudly proclaimed that they would not have been able to negotiate such a strong contract without the influence of the recent sit-in.

The vast majority of the 400 directly employed, unionized Harvard workers making under $10.25 an hour now belong to Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union that represents the custodial staff.