One year ago today, nearly 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) rushed Mass. Hall armed with sleeping bags, cell phones, laptop computers and a promise to remain indefinitely until Harvard granted its employees a living wage of $10.25 per hour.

After 21 days—the longest building occupation in University history—the students emerged, unshaven, behind on their schoolwork and loudly proclaiming victory, with the guarantee of a new committee to reexamine the wages of Harvard’s lowest-paid workers.

Today, Harvard does not have a mandatory wage floor for its employees. But as a result of the committee’s recommendations, the school’s janitors now earn more than the Cambridge living wage—which is currently set at $11.11 per hour.

And all subcontracted workers will receive the same wages as Harvard employees who do equivalent work.

While PSLM members campaigning for a living wage say they now have achieved many of the goals they set before storming Mass. Hall one year ago, success has proven difficult for the living wage campaign—a group whose existence depends on the very labor practices they seek to eliminate.

Growing Pains

Many students who were previously active in the living wage campaign have decreased or even ended their involvement—saying that PSLM’s structure only allowed input by a select few.

For first-years, who were not a part of the events last spring, this made breaking into the PSLM’s living wage campaign particularly difficult.

Although the living wage campaign will lose many of its core members to graduation this spring, there are currently only a handful of first-years who are regularly involved in the campaign.

Orlando Segura ’05 says he had looked forward to joining PSLM after hearing about the sit-in in the news last year, but quit after feeling he was not being incorporated into the group.

“I felt like I was just sitting there at PSLM meetings,” Segura says. “There is an implicit hierarchical structure but they say there isn’t one, which makes it hard to get your opinions across.”

Segura eventually stopped going to planning meetings altogether.

“I still support them, I still believe in a lot of the things they champion,” Segura says. “Had the meetings been more efficient and been more open to listening to others, especially freshmen, I might have stayed.”

“We do have some problems,” says PSLM member Benjamin L. McKean ’02. “We operate by consensus so anone who disagrees with something can stop it, but the way power operates, a person may be uncomfortable speaking out.”

He says the PSLM members are working to make the group more inclusive.