Members of the Occupy Harvard movement plan to demonstrate at Commencement on Thursday in protest of the potential layoffs of Harvard University Library staff, according to a press release distributed by the movement.
Occupiers plan to gather outside the Holyoke Center before making their way into the Yard, where Commencement takes place.
The protest, which is slated to include undergraduates, graduate students, and members of the Harvard Union for Clerical and Technical Workers, comes after 65 library workers took a voluntary early retirement package following an announcement by library leadership in January that the library restructuring may include layoffs.
Although the University has not said for certain that it will lay off workers, Occupy Harvard is protesting because “administrators have never lifted their threats to cut even more jobs,” according to the press release.
Jennifer A. Sheehy-Skeffington, a graduate student in psychology and an occupier, said that the No-Layoffs-Campaign is important because a smaller staff would damage what Occupiers view as an already strained library system.
“This is important because the library workers have been threatened at a time when the library is already really suffering,” Sheehy-Skeffington said.
On the Occupy Harvard blog, Occupy leaders wrote that they organized the protest in order to bring the issue to the attention of people from across the Harvard community, including alumni and parents, “to expose the damage that has been done to the libraries already, and how much more harm further cuts would inflict.”
Skeffington added that the protest is not just about the library-specific cuts, but also about the University’s approach toward labor.
“This kind of cost-cutting, corporate approach is very disappointing,” she said.
Skeffington said that she hopes students will appreciate how cuts and restructuring could endanger the entire library system, one of the “most valuable aspects of the college.” She said that the proposed plan would mean that students would be deprived of the chance to work closely with library specialists, while more skilled library workers would be working in centralized jobs that would not take advantage of their expertise.
—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.
Recommended Articles
-
Library Staff Raise Concerns at Panel Discussion -
Future of Harvard Libraries UncertainAs doubts about the future of Harvard libraries have mounted, what faculty, library workers, and administrators have called lackluster communication on the part of the University has led the Harvard community to question whether a restructured library system will meet its needs.
-
Library Lays Off Six Workers, After Months of WorryAfter “a series of catastrophic misunderstandings,” in the words of the library’s director, the library system has laid off six employees as a part of its reorganization.
-
GSC Considers Potential Structural ChangesAt a monthly meeting of the Graduate School Council on Wednesday, members of the Council discussed whether the Council should continue with a representative democracy or move toward a direct democracy system. A proposed change would allow non-departmental representatives to vote on the issues that the GSC puts forth.
-
Learning From Occupy -
Cut Budgets ResponsiblyToday, there is no real reason for the Medical School to value its directly hired workers over its subcontracted ones. All workers employed at the Medical School and at all other Harvard-affiliated institutions work as equal members of the Harvard community, and no part of the Harvard community, especially not those among the lowest paid, should be singled out to bear the brunt of budget shortfalls.
