Front of Massachusetts Hall, Old Yard, Harvard

It was the end of  2nd day of the sit-in of Massachusetts Hall in Spring of 2001. Close to 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement had been inside demanding a Living Wage for Harvard Workers. I had been there anytime I wasn’t sleeping or guarding the library. I was talking to Joanne Preston, when I spotted him. He had come in the Johnston Gate and huffed and puffed past Harvard Hall with a small entourage. – Ted Kennedy. He had gotten past Mass Hall when he saw the students hanging out of the windows. Without missing a step he swiveled an obtuse¹ angle and headed straight for the windows. His campaign instincts as sharp as ever, he used both hands to greet the students inside. He worked his way along to the front. He marched up to the front door flanked on either side by a uniformed officer of HUPD. He grabbed the handle and had the door open a foot or so when the officer behind stopped it with is hand. The Senator turned to that Officer and said something. I wasn’t close enough to hear. The Senator turned to the other Officer and said something. There were  two or three more cycles. I don’t know what was said, but I imagine at some point The Senator said, “What do you mean I can’t go in there, I’m Ted Kennedy.” Even so, he was not allowed in to see the students.

I did not remember what came next until I looked at The Crimson:

He spoke briefly to the crowd, drawing cheers when he announced his support of the sit-in.

“I believe we’re going to be successful,” he said as he pinned a living wage button on his jacket.

From inside the building, a PSLM member yelled out the window-asking Kennedy whether he would call University President Neil L. Rudenstine to ask for a living wage.

“I’ll call him, absolutely,” Kennedy said.

I’m sure I remember hearing the voice from inside and I’m sure that Teddy responded without hesitation. I’d like to say I remember whose voice it was, but I can’t. But the student I knew who had the instinct to do something like that was Aaron.

Later, local officials and members of the cook’s union would be allowed in to feed the students.

The sit-in did not achieve all of its goals, but did achieve some. The contract with SEIU was later renogiated raising wages for custodial workers.  PSLM got a moratorium on outsourcing which was then and still is the single most powerful weapon the administration has in its continuing 35+ year campaign to bust the Harvard unions.  That is one demand that the students have a unique ability to address. They are immune to the sanctions of labor law. At the same time, student power is transitory. Their personnel is constantly changing.  When pushed into a concession, administrators will move to “watchful waiting.”

The end of the sit-in was a little awkward.  PSLM and supporters declared victory from the steps of Mass Hall, while Joe Wrinn declared victory for the administration somewhere else. It was a truly Harvard moment – both sides proclaiming a moral victory. But Havard labor was observably helped by the efforts of PSLM. Subsequent students would spend a lot of time minimizing the accomplishment in favor of what they hoped to accomplish, but never did.  Ted Kennedy was no revolutionary, I for one was glad he came. Mary Jo and the intrinsic instability of capitalism² not withstanding, I was glad he came.

¹What obtuse used to mean before it came to mean stupid, but you can see how the meaning developed.

²More evident now that at any time in the history of capitalism. I’ve cited Wall Street types so far so you won’t think this is the sole possession of wild-eyed radicals.  But Robert Brenner has been saying this since 2002. If you missed his talk at the Workshop on the Political Economy of Modern Capitalism you can still find the source material under December 8.

HLS No Layoffs @ Harvard Coimmencement

The No Layoffs Campaign, which argues that laying off low wage workers is not the way to deal with Harvard’s ‘financial woes’, made itself visible at the morning excercises of the Harvard Commencement. A phalanx of new graduates, held up yellow signs with one red letter each spelling out ‘No Layoffs’ . Most likely they are members of the Student Labor Action Movement which has been a cosponsoring group throughout the year. They appeared very briefly on the official internet feed.*

Update:  Graduates shown above were in fact members of SLAM from the Law School.  The No Lay Offs Campaign Blog has more complete report including pictures of the rest of the days activity.

*My experience has been that commerical internet video players block screen capture software. A word picture will have to do for the time being. I suspect that this will survive into the archival footage.

and more from Jason Pramas at OpenMediaBoston.

Gathering in front of Holyoke Center after agreement between S.E.i.U. and Allied-Barton was announced March 2007.

Last Spring, thanks to wide community support:

S.E.I.U Local 615 got a contract agreement with the largest security company in the U.S. ¹ – Allied-Barton – the firm which is currently used by Harvard. One axiom of an individual seeking a job, is that your power in what is always an ‘asymmetric relationship’ is at it’s greatest just before you sign on the dotted line. This is also true of unions relative to employers. The job of the union over the duration of the contract is to oppose employers efforts chip away at – if not outright ignore – provisions of the contract.

S.E.I.U Local 615 members at Harvard are asking your support in bringing pressure to bear on Allied-Barton for violations of contract provisions:

• Failing to post job openings so that all eligible union members can bid on them.
• Awarding hours to new employees in unposted jobs.
• Ending all overtime.
• Posting new employees for ‘training’ without any supervision to train them.

These and other infractions are described by the union members themselves at Boston SOUL – Security Officers Union Local615.²

They are asking us to join a rally today in front of the Holyoke Center from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

I respect and support what they are doing and I will join in their parade. However, I do think that Harvard’s Labor Left has not yet found the best path. For the Harvard community to pressure adminstration to perssure Allied-Barton management is at best oblique. Consider what the purpose of outsourcing is in the first place. But, Lest that be called rain, I will render it after the parade.

¹I have deliberately excluded from this, Blackwater, Dyncorp and their ilk who I would call private military organizations.

²We need to get these folks more in tune with the other part of SEIU615 i.e. Harvard’s Custodial Workers. One thing at a time I guess.

But the sky is gay.

I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day.

Mark works on the trees,

While the students are away.

——————–

I have no idea how the Reverand Gomes feels about the cold,

but I’m told he’s a hell of a preacher, if you’ll pardon my french.

After rally at Harvard’s Holyoke Center announcing tentative settlement.

At a brief rally¹ in front of Harvard’s Holyoke Center, negotiators from S.E.I.U. local 615 announced a tentative settlement with Allied-Barton, the company which increasingly supplies contract security guards to Harvard. No details were provided pending ratification of the membership. Union members will now vote in shifts and sometime next week, we’ll know.

¹So brief that I only caught the aftermath what with lunch and Tealuxe and all.

• Report of Public Officials and Other [Boston]
• Consent Communication [Cambridge]
• Online at  The Spring 2001 occupation of Mass Hall by the students of the Progressive Student Labor Movement[PSLM] brought some improvement to the lives of some of Harvard’s lowest paid workers. Included in the settlement that ended the occupation was a temporary and limited respite from the steady trend over the last 35 years to outsource and deunionize labor at Harvard.¹ The group had a number of significant assets and some luck. They had been steadily at work for four years – greater than average continuity for student political groups. They were members from Law, the Kennedy School, Medicine, and Public Health, as well as graduate and undergraduate students from Arts and Sciences.² A student doing “worker outreach” spoke to me at the guard desk of the Lamont Library. They had a fairly vibrant organization with fairly broad recognition on campus, when they had some luck.

  President Neil Rudinstine announced his retirement in the spring of 2000. Going into the fifth year of PSLM, I was invited to a meeting in the Parlor Room of Phillips Brooks House. It was full about 50 people; surprisingly close to the number that went into the occupation. There was a steady stream of events involving a coalition of three groups of low wage workers.

  • Cooks – some “direct” Harvard employees represented by Hotel Entertainment and Restaurant Employees and some working in “cash ops”. It was an explicit goal of the campaign that these contract workers should be “direct employees”.
  • Custodial workers, some “direct” Harvard employees represented by Service Employees Internation Union Local 615 and some employees of cleaning firms under contract to Harvard. It was an explicit goal of the campaign that contract workers should be “direct employees”.
  • Members of the Harvard University Security Parking and Museum Guards’ Union. Administration was replacing them with guards from Security Systems International. [now Allied-Barton]

  Then there was the occupation. For twenty one days close to fifty people inside Mass Hall and anywhere from 300 to 1000 outside. Radical groups and mainstream politicians came in support.³ It was an inclusive effort. Nonetheless, as I’ve said, it did not achieve all of it’s goals, but they did achieve measurable success. There were, I’m sure many things went on behind the scenes that would have made me wince had I known. Still, I think there is only one thing I would criticize. They did so many things well that they made it look easy. Incoming students never quite got it.

  In defense of the newer students [SLAM], the Class of ‘01 did not completely create their own circumstances. A long tenured President concerned about his legacy has vulnerabilities a sitting President does not have.⁴

  There was among the newer students a desire to outdo their predessors. They wanted to acquire the assets of PSLM, but “rebrand’ the organization to a more explicitly radical mold. And the leadership was largely First Years and the group undergraduate. It made a difference. They were very late to learn that in the abscence of the ‘guaranteed’ secular apolcalypse a successful radical action involves a lot of boring non-radical work. The result was an effort smaller and less significance than the effort they were determined to outdo. This has left one significant downside for Harvard Labor. The contract Security Guards, with community support, will probably get a reasonable contract with Allied-Barton. But the Student Labor Action Movement has left the door wide open for Harvard adminsitration, at the end of that contract, to simply go to another, lower bidding, non-unionized vendor. This may be good for SEIU in the long term, but the particular guards at Harvard now will have their lives disrupted. Further, the guards in HUSPMGU and my library guards are probably more vulnerable to outsourcing than before.

  I urge the community to support S.E.I.U. 615 in it’s efforts to get a livable contract with Allied-Barton, but I also urge the community to condemn Harvard’s continuing policy of outsourcing and deunionization of Harvard labor. We must “insource” jobs at Harvard.⁵

  This is admittedly a rearguard action, a genuinely progressive program for labor has yet to emerge.⁶ But secular apocalypse is so notoriously unpredictable that in the current historical circumstance the misestimation of its imminence is creating a lot of disjoint pockets of heat and not a lot of light.

  ¹Coworkers who were at Harvard before me say that the painters were all “let go” in the early ’70’s. That’s just about the time that the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers [AFSCME local 3650] was formed.

  ²At the sit-in proper there were people from the Business School, but I don’t know when they entered the picture. There was even a string theorist

  ³I would like to have heard the discussion when the HUPD officer explained to Senator Kennedy that he was not allowed in to see the students. I was rather proud of the Senator’s performance.

  ⁴The Late Larry Summers had no legacy to protect when he shuffled off this mortal coil. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are cases where mortality and departure from Harvard are the same. There do, hovever, appear to be backdoor attempts by the Fellows to partially resurrect him. The legacy of a second time President who, despite a background in labor, presided over the beginnings of union busting at Harvard is harder to calculate. It is doubtful that SLAM is able to do, let alone take advantage of, such a calculation.

  ⁵This is actually easy to do. Harvard could negostiate a rent-to-own agreement with Allied-Barton. SEIU is constrained by law against such a demand, but the community at large is not and the students in particular could raise this with impunity. I once heard the argument advanced that Harvard Human Resources couuld not find guards at the then going rate of $11.50/hour which required using S.S.I. who could find guards at the then going rate of $9.00/hour. Administration clearly didn’t check with Harvard economics on that one.

  ⁶There are some encouraging movements on the scene e.g. Participatory Economics and the Free Software Movement. Participatory Ecomomics seeks to be general, but has limited “mindshare’ at the moment. Free Software is restricted in the activities it covers, but it has achieved significant “marketshare”. Micro$oft may dominate the personal computer, but Apache software has dominated the webserver space for years. Both movements explore how to spread advanced modes of production beyond the privileged few. And they are not locked in to a specific prediction of a secular apocalyptic event. They are achieving results now!

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2007/05/17/inclusive-organizing-vs-exclusive-organizing/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2007/05/17/three-arrested-in-harvard-square-stand-for-security/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2007/05/17/three-arrested-in-harvard-square-stand-for-security/#comments Thu, 17 May 2007 19:58:30 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2007/05/17/three-arrested-in-harvard-square-sta
  SEIU 615 and supporters rounding the bend in front of Lehman Hall, Harvard Square.
  
  Three people stood firm. They stayed until they blocked traffic…
  
  …and they were handcuffed.
  The guy in the red hat is Steve Meachem, one of Cambridge’s establishment radicals. I believe he is a necessitarian, but I respect him. When not being arrested he works very hard to help people in very direct ways – without fanfare. I’m somewhat of a nominalist – ideas are not ends in themselves; they are tools. I met Steve through Eviction Free Zone. Not a bad group. Tom Potter was shouting something at Emerson Harris. O’brien was already gone. She was coming in Johnston Gate as I was going out. They are competing necessitarians. The person in the green dayglo hat is a Lawyer’s Guild legal observer. The man standing to Steve’s left, Jeff Feuer, is also a legal observer but he’s wearing a black hat. Dude! You’re out of uniform! Doesn’t matter, I’m sure all the cops – Cambridge and Harvard – know who he is.
  
  I was too slow, but they were put in the wagon.
  
  Steve Meachem of City Life/Vida Urbana, Michael Gallagher of SEIU 615, and Darlene Lombos of Community Labor United
  on their release from Cambridge Police Station.
  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2007/05/17/three-arrested-in-harvard-square-stand-for-security/feed/ 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-from-each-according-as-she-is-able-to-each-according-to-her-n/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-from-each-according-as-she-is-able-to-each-according-to-her-n/#comments Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:11:57 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-from-each-according-as-she-is- Impossible dream? Perhaps. But an experimentalist must always ask the question: “compared to what?” The Pareto idea rejects policies that disadvantage anyone no matter how well off. It is extraordinarily hard to engineer in practice and has known logical limits. [Discovered in part by Ken Arrow who was at Harvard for a time.] Yet classical economics claims to be optimally fair.

  I don’t buy the premises. And I’ve done field work.

  Is Harvard a ‘progressive employer’? My claim is that it depends. In the case of the many HUCTW members who are faculty secretaries, it depends very much on the personality and politics of the specific faculty member. In the case of people who work in the large hierarchical units like the Harvard College Library the answer is much more complex…

  Aside from the exclusion of the majority of humans [he used 'he'], Marx’ idea is eminently worth keeping in mind. I have never seen it made to work without compromise. The point is to be honest about what compromises you are making. The road to narrow sectarianism is paved with ideological purity.
  Unions are by nature creatures of the left, but to date they have always been part of organizations dominated by hierarchy. In theory, unions are free to choose any organization the membership sees fit. In practice, management can and does influence these decisions. Unions are also regulated by federal law. Knowing what the law actually does depends on who controls the means of enforcement which is divided between the the executive and the courts. The national labor relations board and the department of labor are the two most significant bodies of the executive. 35 years of the rule of the right has left a definite footprint on these bodies and the courts. My difference with both the current ‘leadership’ of the union and the ‘group variously known’* is in the details of challenging this aggregation of power – how? when? for what purpose? at what cost?

  BBL

  *to appear.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-from-each-according-as-she-is-able-to-each-according-to-her-n/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-pension-matters/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-pension-matters/#comments Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:33:51 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-pension-matters/ In the late 60’s most large corporations* changed their pension plans from defined benefit – the employer guarantees a specified level of retirement benefits – to defined contribution – the employer guarantees a specified level of money applied to investment funds. Harvard, despite a substantially different business model, followed suit.*  In the heady days ending in 2001, this seemed like a win-win for management and labor. Subsequent events have shown the down side – a massive transfer of risk to the retirees. As the attack on pensions continues in the ‘private sector’, I think we should wonder if Harvard will adopt some the business practices du jour. I propose we ask Dr. Beeferman.

  If elected, I promise that he will get a good hearing with the negotiating committee.

  *This is a whole nuther can of worms. Large corporations are “private” in the sense that the “owners” – the stockholders – get to keep the profits**. They do pay taxes. Havard on the other hand is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution of the Commonwealth and does not pay appreciable taxes***.
  **after a hefty slice of ‘executive compensation’ is chopped off.

  ***The so called Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT], compared to a ‘private’ business is pennies on the dollar of assessed value. The taxpayers of Cambridge pay a substantial opportunity cost, yet Harvard, when administration finds it convenient, regards itself as ‘private’.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/11/huctw-pension-matters/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/06/huctw-the-behavioural-economics-of-using-and-choosing-new-software/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/06/huctw-the-behavioural-economics-of-using-and-choosing-new-software/#comments Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:22:08 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/06/huctw-the-behavioural-economics-of-u Macroeconomics is the study of economies no smaller than a nation-state. Microeconomics is alternatively known as The Theory of the Firm. Both of these rely on assumptions about how people make economic decisions and make claims based on aggregate measures of bunches of people. Behavioural economics purports to measure how individuals actually behave in “the market place”.  The idea that economics could be based on empirically determined behavior rather than high altitude assumptions is encouraging. One wonders what took them so long.
  Complicating the problem of observation vs. assumption is the fact that the object of study – the economy – is evolving at least as fast as ‘progress’ in understanding it. For example, there is one really, really significant change since Adam Smith analyzed the making and using of pins – as in sewing. It’s a lot harder for a person to figure out if a piece of software is going to do her any good than it is for a sewing pin. It’s a lot easier to get another kind of pin if the first one doesn’t work out. Most importantly it takes a lot longer to learn to use it effectively. Suppose I’m comfortable using one program. How do I know when, if ever, a new program will pay me back in productivity and convenience for the time I must spend to learn it. It’s not easy even for people with technical degrees and experience in the software business.

  I’ll come back to this.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/06/huctw-the-behavioural-economics-of-using-and-choosing-new-software/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/04/huctw-new-technology-and-the-older-workers/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/04/huctw-new-technology-and-the-older-workers/#comments Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:43:00 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/04/huctw-new-technology-and-the-older-w Like everything in the real world economics** the rapid pace of technological advance is a boon to some and bane to others. When I was knee high to a cyclotron,*** I read Norbert Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings. He realized early on that automation would have profound effects on the world of work. He went to the unions to warn them. He was not well received.

  In the days of Wiener, automation largely affected manufacturing. Surely it would never reach the knowledge industry, right? Surprise! The world of knowledge work is changing as rapidly now as manufacturing did during the Industrial Revolution. Harvard has a highly mixed response to this. Unsuprisingly, the science and engineering departments have embraced much of this change. Surprisingly, the Classics Building has a very nice looking computer center. We in the infrastructure, the Havard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, have a somewhat different problem. The administration, not the market, has reserved to itself, the right to determine how technology will change our lives. Sometimes we are told that we can’t use new technology, sometimes we are told the we must, and sometimes we are told that technology means that we are no longer needed.

  Are these administrative decisions based solely on “objective criteria”, “the ’science’ of labor economics”, or “the good of Harvard.” Or are there more narrow interests involved? Why are technicians who maintain chemistry labs considered “technical workers”, but the people who maintain computer labs “managers”? And the marketers keep telling us that computers are much easier to maintain than they used to be.****

  Most importantly, what say do we have in how our work environment is fashioned – that it allow us to accentuate our strengths? Or is it decided on high by managers insecure in their lack of technical knowledge being told by marketers that they must buy this or that to “stay competitive?”

  I have a lot more to say, but I have to do some life support activity. I’ll discuss the nanoeconomics of technological change. i.e. why people who think Version x.y.z of Eudora was just fine are not nuts.

  In the mean time. if you missed my previous posts they’re flipped to private by still on the server.

  HUCTW:The light dawns on Marblehead

  HUCTW:Much ado about not much.

  I always have a lot of “works in progress” like, My Heart is on the Left. But Tru is half right when he says that all an artist has is his life. The whole truth is that’s all any of us have. Be a work in progress. It’s a good thing.
  *Actually, I would like to include younger workers with a Luddite bent in this conversation.
  **As opposed to Planck scale economics in which picking the right standard alleviates the need for any engineering. Some believe in Pareto Optimality and voila they are in the best of all possible worlds. Most of them are bankers, CEO’s, or economists. Others incant, “From each according as he is able to each according to his needs,” and think they are surely destined to lead the way to the promised land. Me? I think we should build the future together. In overwhelming likelihood, it will require engineering. Step one would to include the sisters of Xanthippe in the above nostrum. Sadly Wikipedia does not yet know the best story about her – related by Carl Jaspers. Did you ever wonder how Socrates could afford to hang out in the market place being all Socratic and stuff?
  ***They’re about the size of a refrigerator these days.

  ****I once had a bad bit in THE accumulator of my PDP-8. That bit required a 4″x 6″ printed circuit card.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/04/huctw-new-technology-and-the-older-workers/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/01/voila/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/01/voila/#comments Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:30:40 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/01/voila/ We DO have an online HUCTW election announcement. I still remember the summer of 2001. It was Friday evening I came home to find the notice of the contract ratification election for the FOLLOWING TUESDAY! That meant ONE DAY to campaign! So we’ve made some progress to a more open Union. Did my nudging help? After the 2001 contract election, it was more than a year before the full text of the contract was made available to the members. In fact, the election for officers was held before the full contract was shown to the membership. There was no informed discussion of just how well the officers had done before the election. Hopefully this time around we can remedy that as well.

  Nominations were closed on Tuesday. Hopefully the candidate list will appear on the website soon. I am running for Union Representative in the College Library and Executive Board from the FAS Arts Region. Laura Johnson has also declared for this position. I think her three issues are good ones, but I would like to be a little more specific [as well as add some issues.]

  The HUCTW website [and for that matter the OpenHUCTW website] are both broadcast style. The few [I'll quietly avoid the adjectives 'brave' and 'proud'] talking to the multitudes – top-down or Read-Only culture as Larry Lessig says. A Union should be bottom-up, many-to-many, or Read/Write culture in Lessig’s terms. We have, after 5 years achieved a Web 1.0 website, but there is abundant Web 2.0 technology available. The exact choice depends on knowing our membership. Personally I find Wiki’s as in Wikipedia an encouraging technology. For example, if you open my Wikipedia user page and the accompanying “edit this page” entry, you can flip between the presentation and the markup that generates it. You don’t actually have to know wiki markup to edit. Find something that does what you want and copy it. Go ahead! Try it! Leave me a message! I The system keeps ALL the backup copies!

  [This by the way, is step one in bringing flexibility to the workplace, learning from each other. ]

  So I have made quite a few edits, but I don’t actually know wiki markup. I have to admit though that I have had a lot of years of experience with software, so I may not understand how hard it is for others.

  If that’s the case, we could use a slightly older technology – the discussion forum. It is not harder than e-mail and it has the advantage that all the different contributions are in one place rather than sprinkled through your inbox. But, this summer at Wikimania2006,a prototype of Wysiwiki was presented. You don’t need to know markup at all. It’s like Micro$oft Word where “What You See Is What You Get” except it makes wiki pages rather than printed documents.

  I’ll regale you with the events of 2004 tomorrow including the raise that was not a raise and why Donene thinks none of y’all should burden your pretty little minds with the Consumer Price Index.
  -r

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/12/01/voila/feed/ 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/harvard-fires-janitor-for-fainting-seiu-protests/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/harvard-fires-janitor-for-fainting-seiu-protests/#comments Thu, 21 Sep 2006 18:51:30 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/harvard-fires-janitor-for-fainting-s

  Members of Service Employees Internation Union Local 615 distributing flyers for Friday’s support rally for Saintely Paul.

  ——

  From the SEIU 615 flyer:

  Saintely Paul has been working in the William James Hall for Facilities Maintenance Operations (FMO) for the past 6&1/2 years. He was fired at the end of June after he fainted at work. Havard refuses to rehire him despite medical documentation of his treatment . Upon firing, Saintely’s health insurance was taken away.

  YOU CAN HELP!
  Rally with janitors, politicians, students, and faculty!
  Friday, September 22, 5PM
  In front of the Holyoke Center (Au Bon Pain)
  Harvard Square, Cambridge

  Also:

  Contact Harvard University’s interim president Derek Bok by e-mail:

  derek_bok {the normal at-sign goeth here*}  harvard.edu

  Or by phone: (617) 495-1502

  Tell him that Harvard janitors deserve better treatment. Demand that Harvard reinstate Saintely Paul with back pay and cover the medical expenses he has incurred during this period.

  Questions? Contact SEIU local 615 at 617-878-7403

  This is not a request to cease services and deliveries. No dispute with any other employer.

  *handing the President’s email address to spam-bots is counterproductive.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/harvard-fires-janitor-for-fainting-seiu-protests/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/a-new-day-dawns/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/a-new-day-dawns/#comments Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:48:23 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/a-new-day-dawns/ Carrying tubs of used course packs. for the Habitat for Humanity book sale.

  The deals are not a steal, but they are better than new and the proceeds go to a place. A few pennies may even end up in New Orleans. Course packs are expensive. They were once [if not still] printed by Union labor – members of what was once the Graphic Communication International Union. It is now the Graphic Communication Conference of the Teamsters
  which is in turn part of the Change to Win Coalition. But if my most favoritist reactionary string theorist, Lumidek claims that course packs are expensive because of the Unions, he will be wrong! Most of the cost is licensing that intervention in the ‘free market’ that the right-wingers love so much – copyrights. | Richard Stallman appeared briefly at the Wikipedia conference at Harvard Law this summer. Given the significant differences between copyrights and patents, he asked whether the concept of intellectual property has any ontological basis. It is, he asserts, merely a tool to legitimize business practices that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

  ———
  Today is the last day of the sale.

  As you might expect, Harvard labor is also in the picture…

  …with Jim from FMO helping out…	…while the folks from HUDS get ready for their day.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/09/21/a-new-day-dawns/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/30/waging-a-living/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/30/waging-a-living/#comments Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:03:26 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/30/waging-a-living/ PBS together with Democracy Now! have produced a three part series about the living wage. The first installment is about Walmart and Chicago’s ‘Big Box’ Ordinance and in the Boston market airs tonight at 10:00 PM on WGBH 2. Transcripts and audio are available on the PBS website.
  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/30/waging-a-living/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/lessig-the-ethics-of-the-free-culture-movement/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/lessig-the-ethics-of-the-free-culture-movement/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:22:04 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/lessig-the-ethics-of-the-free-cultur Mostly I work in the Economics building. [Downstairs from Andrei Schleiffer in fact.] It is right next to the Law School. Accident?

  You can believe in accidents, but if you believe in accidents, science ceases to exist.

  Economics, in the capitalist paradigm, can’t exist without legal definitions and enforcement of property. It was interesting to hear someone talking from the Law side.

  Lessig put up Richard Stallman’s picture and described him as someone who was viewed as a crackpot in the ’80’s but in the 20th century is not. “He is a hero.”

  Mention pro and con of Austrian free-market economist Friedrich Hayek.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/lessig-the-ethics-of-the-free-culture-movement/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/toward-a-definition-of-freedom/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/toward-a-definition-of-freedom/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:21:25 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/toward-a-definition-of-freedom/ Mako Hill

  Eben Moglen, President of the Software Freedom Law Center made some interesting remarks about why Free Software managed to get as far as it did, whereas other works have suffered more damage. Basically, software was easy to protect because there was not a prior body of law rigidly defining property rights. Other works are covered by pre-existing long standing law.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/toward-a-definition-of-freedom/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/the-wikipedians-are-here/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/the-wikipedians-are-here/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 15:35:17 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/the-wikipedians-are-here/ Meeting in Pound Hall [where Registration also happens] with a few sessions in the Ames Courtroom in AUstin Hall, It is really quite exciting. I don’t multi-task as well as the young people so my reporting will lag a bit, but you can follow the action through streams on the conference website. The conference will continue through this afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday. Y’all come! It does cost money. People with employers that respect them could ask for professional development money? Details are on the conference website.

  Jimbo Wales talk gave a much richer picture of the political economy/sociology/cognitive model of the organization behind Wikipedia and related projects. It is much more realistic than catch phrases that appear in the news. At the same time, Wales has built what is overwhelmingly a volunteer organization and seems to understand that he has to take direction from them as well as give it. It is a relatively open communication model. Very different from … oh … say … the Harvard College Library. I’ll go into this in more detail in time.

  My apologies to the folks in Harvard’s Lamont, Littauer, and Widener Libraries. I misjudged my time and didn’t get to invite y’all personally.

  I must further apoligize! I should have invited everybody in Havard College Library. Heck Harvard University Library. Heck alll 5000 members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. Ok Derek, you can come too.

  Randy.f

  Union steward AFSCME local 3650

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/08/04/the-wikipedians-are-here/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/07/13/defending-the-right-to-unionize-labor-confronts-the-bush-board/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/07/13/defending-the-right-to-unionize-labor-confronts-the-bush-board/#comments Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:18:39 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/07/13/defending-the-right-to-unionize-labo
  Gathering of organized labor at the steps of the Thomas P. O’ Neill Federal Office Building on Casuway Street in Boston. The National Labor Relations Board has an office there.
  Workers’ Rights Threatened by Upcoming Decision from Bush’s NLRB

  Have you ever showed a co-worker how to perform a task at work? Have you ever been asked to look over someone else’s work? If so, the Bush appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is poised to make a decision which could affect your right to join a union.

  Jobs with Justice has the full story….

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/07/13/defending-the-right-to-unionize-labor-confronts-the-bush-board/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/16/asleep-on-the-job/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/16/asleep-on-the-job/#comments Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:20:12 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/16/asleep-on-the-job/ The guy by the door missed this call on Wednesday from S.E.I.U 615 to support Harvard janitors laid off for the summer. Fortunately, SLAM was on the case:

  ——

  RALLY TO SUPPORT HARVARD JANITORS!

  Every year the Unicco Service Company at Harvard temporarily lays off several
  janitors and during this period the janitors lose their health insurance.

  Many of the workers have children and it’s dangerous for them to be without
  insurance.

  Join in solidarity with the janitors from SEIU Local 615 to say:

  STOP PLAYING WITH OUR HEALTH!
  CONSISTENT HEALTH COVERAGE FOR ALL!

  —-

  Unicco’s labor practices were the subject of the hunger strike at University of Miami this spring. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any of my own coverage of Wednesday’s rally and the Crimson didn’t cover it. However, the SLAM Website has gone to “community portal” software. Anyone who went to the rally can hop over to the site, create an account* and post an article. There is no substitute for a good rally, but why get as much mileage as you can out of it?

  *The account create function works. Thanks to the Havard Computer Society.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/16/asleep-on-the-job/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/08/welcome-back-yall/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/08/welcome-back-yall/#comments Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:35:19 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/08/welcome-back-yall/ We’ve been getting ready for you.

  

  And we’re glad to do it, but here’s the thing. We need to live. That pretty much means we need a living wage. Some of y’all worked on that as did some of today’s graduates. The new bunch changed the name to Student Labor Action Movement [SLAM]. I understand that each generation of students has to have it’s own sense of contribution, but the idea that they alone can transform Harvard permanently is probably a bit of infantile omnipotence. Certainly leaving y’all out of the picture [as they pretty much did this year] makes no sense.

  Anyhow, the Dining Service Workers, represented by Unite-HERE! Local 26, are coming up on contract renewal [June 19]. There is apparently a tentative contract agreement. Administration, no doubt, wanted to put the best possible spin on this for y’all. Harvard’s PR machine also cooked up this new bit for y’all. SLAM doesn’t have quite the same resources as administration , so give them a bit to come up with their response.

  SLAM has pointed out on their list that the tentative agreement says nothing about summer employment. Without new language in the contract, most of Harvard’s cooks will not work during the summer and thanks to the Bush administration [there's that ugly word again] they cannot collect unemployment. Long ago, Dining Service workers could bid on other summer jobs on campus. Harvard administration no longer allows that.

  There is another point in the tentative agreement that SLAM has not looked at yet. Joe Wrinn cites $31,000/year as the average salary. Is that an actual $31,000 or is it $23,250 for nine months ANNUALIZED! Lest you think I’m just being picky, administration did something like the latter with the HUCTW contract. They claimed a 4.5%/year increase for the first year, but it would not take effect until 4 months into the contract. In dollar terms that worked out to 2.8% which was about the the rate of inflaltion at the time of contract negotiation. Subsequent oil shock inflation pushed our “raise” into the negative in real terms.

  So I hope y’all enjoy your visit. Sorry about the whether. I told Sally to order up some better whether, but she’s the last one to listen to the employees. Anyhow, I hope y’all will keep an eye on things over the summer. We won’t have as much student support so your help is unusually important.

  Thanks.

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/06/08/welcome-back-yall/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/05/26/movin-out/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/05/26/movin-out/#comments Fri, 26 May 2006 18:15:35 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/05/26/movin-out/

  Not quite the picture described by Billy Joel, occupants of the the houses in the Yard move out on completion of their first year at Harvard. In many cases, they have the help of Harvard parents. In other cases, they call on professionals:

  
  Gary Melanson of Gold Star Trucking shows
  solidarity with Union Labor
  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/05/26/movin-out/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/21/on-the-road-again-seiu-summons-support-to-university-of-miami/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/21/on-the-road-again-seiu-summons-support-to-university-of-miami/#comments Fri, 21 Apr 2006 21:24:39 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/21/on-the-road-again-seiu-summons-suppo
  “>
  Organizer Dan Nicolai of S.E.I.U. Local 615 outside UNICCO headquarters in Boston.

  TO: Allies & student leaders in Boston area

  As you know, janitors are in the 7th week of a strike against UNICCO at the University of Miami. Also, a hunger strike by workers and students has now been going on for 18 days. At least three workers and one student have been hospitalized.

  Last week, a group of students occupied the Admissions Office to demand union recognition for striking janitors. More information about student and community actions can be found at www.yeswecane.org

   http://www.yeswecane.org/> .

  University of Miami President Donna Shalala so far refuses to agree to janitors’ demands for card-check recognition of the union. Workers are demanding card-check instead of an election because UNICCO has already threatened and intimidated workers (this is under investigation by the National Labor Relations Board) and would continue to do so in an election campaign.
  Beginning tomorrow (Saturday 4/22) leaders from community, student and religious organizations around the U.S. are going to Miami to meet with the hunger strikers, student leaders, and SEIU President Andy Stern. WE ARE PUTTING TOGETHER AN EMERGENCY DELEGATION TO MIAMI, LEAVING ON SATURDAY OR SUNDAY AND RETURNING MONDAY. THIS IS AN INVITATION FOR STUDENT LEADERS AT CAMPUSES CLEANED BY UNICCO.

  I know it’s a busy time of year, but please consider taking a couple of days to participate in this. If you are interested and/or have questions, please email or contact me at 617-523-6150 ext. 425 or 617-416-8577(cell).

  Dan Nicolai
  Organizer, SEIU Local 615
  ——-
  Of the two legal routes to Union recognition, card-check is preferred to NLRB [i.e. Bush Administration] supervised elections. UNICCO after weeks of striking and hunger striking has admitted that they have agreed to card check at other sites. The refusal is clearly coming from “liberal” president Donna Shalala. Rumor has it she is on the short list for president of Harvard. Is this any way to run a University?

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/21/on-the-road-again-seiu-summons-support-to-university-of-miami/feed/ 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/13/a-note-from-harvard-slam-solidarity-with-students-around-the-nation/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/13/a-note-from-harvard-slam-solidarity-with-students-around-the-nation/#comments Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:14:33 +0000 fensterm http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/13/a-note-from-harvard-slam-solidarity- … and the World.

  Did or did not the late Larry Summers exhort us to be a global university? Well the net is a bit Amerocentric, but it’s a start. This Harvard SLAM list has been alive with notices about vigourous student action on other campuses. :

  • Students at the University of Miami joined with SEIU hunger strikers Wedenesday Feb 12, but were locked out of the Ashe Building.
  • Students at the University of Virginia began a sit-in on Wednesday February 12th to demand that the university pay its employees a living wage! [More from IndyMedia Richmond.]
  • Students at the University of Colorado are currently on Hunger Strike until the University adopts the Designated Suppliers Program.
  • At midnight, police arrested TEN students at the University of California-Riverside for participating in a non-violent civil disobedience demanding that their university adopt a policy ensuring that university apparel and uniforms are produced in factories in which workers are represented by a democratic union and earn a living wage.[ A second round of arrests.][More from LA IndyMedia. and WWW IndyMedia.]
  • Students at ColombiaUniversity who are sitting in at the Low Library to demand that Columbia adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, so that collegiate apparel be made in factories where workers have democratic representation. [More from Zach of the Graduate Students Union]

  Most support to living wage campaigns at other campaigns[universities?], and complaints to the administration can be done at

  http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/uvalivingwage/alerts

  with the exception of the call to action at Colombia University. I include below a draft of my letter to the president of Colombia; do feel free to use it as a template.

  Cheers
  K…

  Dear Mr. Bollinger,

  I am writing to support the struggle of those brave students at Colombia
  University who are sitting in at the Low Library to demand that Columbia
  adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, so that collegiate apparel be made
  in factories where workers have democratic representation, and to which
  companies pay enough to allow workers to negotiate for a living wage from
  management.

  The students claim to have presented this proposal to Columbia in
  September and have not seen any action despite going through many meetings
  and attempts to work with the University administration. You’ve stated
  support for “the goal of promoting basic fairness in wages, working
  conditions, and a voice for workers”, and this student request is asking
  you to live up to those exemplary principles and to act to make sure those
  goals are met.

  My thanks, and best wishes,
  _______ ________
  _______ University

  ]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/fensterm/2006/04/13/a-note-from-harvard-slam-solidarity-with-students-around-the-nation/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/