SLAM followed its November 2 meeting with a trip to the Lowell Junior Common Room for a meeting with Evelyn Hammonds, Dean of Harvard College, on aligning our priorities with budget cutbacks. Although it was not indicated in the email publicizing the feedback session, Dean Hammonds did not show up. Present instead were Suzie Nelson, Dean of Student Life, a Lowell House tutor, Lowell housemasters, and four student members of the Budget Cut Task Force. Dean Hammonds’s spontaneous absence raised initial questions about the seriousness with which the administration took the meeting.

Dean Nelson and her colleagues stressed the importance of mechanisms that the College has set up by which to solicit feedback from undergraduates regarding ideas on budget cuts. The main method in place at this point is the Idea Bank, a program borrowed from MIT through which students can contribute and vote on their most favored ideas for how to save money in Harvard’s current time of financial “need.” The Idea Bank will close in two weeks, at which point the most positively rated ideas will go to “working groups.” These working groups will process the most fruitful ideas into recommendations for FAS to be submitted at the end of the semester. Dean Nelson expressed frustration that input to the Idea Bank has dwindled over the past couple of weeks and that Dean Hammonds’s three meetings over the weekend were not better attended.

Many meeting participants, however, questioned the legitimacy of the administration’s attempts to incorporate student feedback in its decisions. Abby Brown pointed out that students see that vehicles for information such as the Idea Bank exist, but they are skeptical about where the information will go once collected. Lack of attendance at the events, she and Megan Shutzer suggested, is not because students have nothing to contribute, but rather because they are not confident that their ideas will, at the end of the day, be considered seriously by the administration. Accountability to students, then, is needed at two levels: in determining which of the working groups’ suggestions are most palatable, and in making sure that the best of those suggestions are actually implemented by the administration.

In addition, some students have questions about broader issues of accountability and decision-making structures within the university. Zach Hughes asked about the Harvard Management Company’s response to this financial crisis, wondering if the risky investment processes HMC engaged in would be reformed so that we do not have to deal with such extreme changes in finances in the future. Dean Nelson skirted the question and responded by stressing the need to cut costs in small ways on the level of day-to-day operations within FAS. A culture of sacrifice, it was agreed upon by the directors of the meeting, is needed to cut costs. However, Lowell House master Diana Eck called into question the very notion of saving $120 million in small material savings such as energy efficiency measures—this was met with reluctant agreement by Dean Nelson.

Eck and fellow House Master Dorothy Austin also candidly discussed an alternative money-saving solution: faculty pay cuts. Immediately following the endowment crash, faculty sentiment drifted toward a feeling of solidarity over possible 1-2% pay cuts. According to Eck and Austin, Dean Michael Smith squashed this initiative among concerned faculty members.

Megan Shutzer also expressed concern over Harvard’s role in Allston. When asked who has decision-making power in the area, Dean Nelson said she was not able to provide any information but would get back to Megan on who might be contactable for information on this issue.

The SLAM members who attended this meeting came away feeling that the way in which the administration interacts with students regarding issues of feedback on budget cut issues has not changed much. While we now have a better knowledge of the Idea Bank and its context, as well as the working groups, we felt that the administration trivialized the meeting by sending representatives who themselves were not adequately informed about the power structures that govern the university at large. We must now choose whether to act by organizing an intensive effort to manifest our priorities through the avenues that the university has set up or by exerting pressure in more concerted, direct ways on the administration.

Friends,

Join us today at 4:00 p.m. in solidarity with workers as we rally to voice our opposition to many of the recent cutbacks. We will gather in front of the Holyoke Center to reaffirm our commitment to those members of our community hit hardest by recent administrative decisions and let Harvard know that the campaign for transparency, dialogue, and alternative solutions to layoffs and injurious cutbacks has not been buried by the summer months. If the following issues speak to you, it is important that you attend this rally.

The cuts instituted by the university have affected workers in unimaginable ways, beyond the numbers we have become accustomed to reading about—the 275 layoffs occurring over the summer. Harvard and its respective vendors have not only laid off employees, but cut hours, reshuffled schedules, and effectively increased workloads. Consider the custodian who works at a river house and has suffered a 12.5% cut in his hours. Those hours were needed to cover his family's cost of living. Without it he must find a second job, but he fears that Harvard will cut his hours only more if he does so. He's afraid to even speak out on the matter.

Or what about the employee who already works a second job? The university has instituted a scheduling change that requires custodians to be available throughout the week; their work hours will change with each cycle. Many will have to abandon their second jobs, which they depended on to make ends meet, and now with decreased hours.

Consider how work has changed for employees after the layoffs and hour cuts. Buildings must still be cleaned as they were the year before, so management has required remaining workers complete the same aggregate sums of work with less time—a speed-up. This practice endangers the health and safety of many workers. Consider the custodian who recently tore a ligament after the stress of carrying more trash, cleaning more floors, and with less time. The bruises on the arm of another tells a similar story.

Under no circumstances should we compromise the health and safety of workers. Yet, Harvard has chosen to do so, without any consideration of salary cuts for the university's highest paid employees—high-level administrators, financial officers, and our faculty, whose average salary is more than $12,000 higher than Princeton's. The university not only refuses to consider alternative budget cutting mechanisms, but it has even resisted open dialogue on the matter. The university and its vendors have slashed hours without notifying the union, and even now have decided not to sit down with workers and union organizers to discuss hour cuts or the implementation of a more flexible schedule. Instead, Harvard has placed an embargo on this sort of information.

As a university that strives to foster open dialogue and creative problem-solving, Harvard has failed this mission over the past months. If Harvard refuses to create genuine channels of discussion over these issues, then we must amplify our voice more loudly until Harvard is forced to listen.

Please, join us today at 4:00 pm in front of the Holyoke Center.

Best regards,

Student Labor Action Movement

Friends,

We are asking for your support this week, as we rally behind Ravi Raj, a Harvard employee who has endured considerable harassment in the workplace and now faces the loss of his job. We will gather to picket in front of CGIS North (1737 Cambridge St.) on Thursday, September 3rd at 12 pm.

Ravi Raj is employed at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS). Beginning in 2007, Ravi suffered racial slurs and the ridicule of his Indian accent on the job. He approached many responsible administrators on the matter, with the result that his office was taken away, his work was subjected to heavy scrutiny, and he received mediocre evaluations despite superb productivity and credentials. Ravi, a member of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, turned to the union for help, only to face retaliatory discipline from management.

Ravi was confronted at work and threatened by a stranger, hours before a planned meeting with administrators to address racial discrimination. He has experienced anonymous telephone harassment. Ravi has faced unusual surveillance: a supervisor was once observed taking pictures of his friend's car, parked near Ravi's workplace. Throughout, Ravi has provided excellent IT desktop support. His work output was recently proven to be among the best in his unit, below only the department manager's level of production. He often receives effusive compliments from clients. Nevertheless, on August 20, Ravi was threatened in writing with termination, supposedly for poor performance. His job is now on the line after a protracted struggle to end discrimination in the workplace

Ravi has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). He has refused to be intimidated, even as he faces being fired. Ravi supports two children who are pursuing higher education and an elderly father. He urgently needs our support! Please join workers, students and concerned community members this Thursday.

Best regards,

Student Labor Action Movement

Two major pieces of news today:

1. Harvard administrators have announced that 275 workers will be laid off in the next 7 business days. According to director of Human Resources, Marilyn Hausammann, "About half of the positions eliminated are administrative or professional positions, and almost all of the remaining ones are clerical or technical jobs". For the Harvard Magazine story click here. Harvard's clerical and technical workers are planning a rally along with students for this Thursday, 12pm, in front of the John Harvard statue in front of University Hall.

2. We've heard that Harvard's security contract has been moved from Allied Barton to Securitas USA. And because the security workers' union contract is with Allied Barton and not Securitas USA, Harvard's security workers might not have a union contract next year.

Now more than ever is the time for Harvard's community members to send a message of collective sacrifice and compassion. It is not too late to implement creative solutions for budget cuts, to enact voluntary pay cuts for higher paid faculty, and to bring our community together. To those workers who received notices of layoffs today, our hearts go out to you.

Above is the online ad that HLS students put in the New York Times to promote shared sacrifice and no layoffs at Harvard.

More surprises to come during commencement/reunion activities.

Without a doubt, Forst's resignation as Executive Vice President has put Harvard in a tight spot. Forst left after nine months as Executive VP, a position created in 2008. Forst was the first to hold this position and was able to decide for himself what many of his responsibilities were, according to statements he made during our meeting with him two weeks ago. For this reason the job title does not have definite responsiblities, and so it is hard to tell exactly how Harvard will be affected. However, we do know that tasks usually given to Harvard's president were delegated to Ed Forst, and that when it came to Harvard's budget, Forst was counted on to explain what decisions were being made and why. So we do know that a prominent authority on Harvard's budget, if not the authority, is leaving during a budget crisis, with no known successor or administrator who will act as interim place-holder.

However, there is also an opportunity here. Harvard more than ever needs an Executive Vice President to act as budget czar. Besides being a trend in Obama's administration (Climate Czar, Cyberspace Czar, Housing Czar, Automobile Czar...), it's really the only way to get the needed reforms and cuts happening quickly. The opportunity lies in transparency. The new Executive VP will no doubt encounter a lot of suspicion and mistrust as he or she makes decisions that devalue certain departments. The only way to combat the notion that these decisions are not arbitrary, but rather the result of careful decision-making, is a clear and transparent strategy for budget cuts. That way faculty, students, and staff do not have to take issue with the person, but rather the strategy, and a much more productive conversation between the new Executive Vice-President and the rest of Harvard University can take place.

On May 26th, Ed Forst announced his resignation as Executive Vice President to Harvard University. So far, no public statements have been made that say why Forst is leaving his position.

SLAM met with Ed Forst on May 20th, six days before his resignation. There have been questions about what Forst's job actually was, since the position Executive Vice President was created in 2008, and Ed Forst was the first to hold it. When SLAM met with Forst, we asked him what it meant to be Harvard's top administrator. Technically, Forst is the head of Harvard's finances, administration, and human resources. But what does this mean during a budget crisis? Forst explained that his job was to balance the priorities of Harvard's various departments, and that he accomplished this by asking questions to the various departmental heads in order to get a better sense of what could be done. We then asked what "balancing Harvard's priorities" means during a budget crisis when there are departments with competing interests. Forst reiterated that he spoke directly to the various deans of Harvard, and that he looked for efficiencies that could gained by combining services across various departments.

We thank Forst for spending an hour and fifteen minutes meeting with SLAM and fielding our questions, but we were unable to get a sense of what strategies Forst or the school held for making hard decisions about which priorities or services come first. As we've seen, the school has moved beyond the phase of asking questions and "cutting the fat" from Harvard, and will now be making cuts directly into student life, the undergraduate/graduate curriculae, core administrative tasks, and core support staff work (such as cleaning rooms and labs). On the bright side, we did get Forst to agree to push for a website that centralizes all of Harvard's budget data, similar to MIT's Institute Wide Planning website.

Dear President Faust,

The Student Labor Action Movement would like to thank Bill Murphy, Director of Labor Relations, for responding to the letter we addressed to you. We have had productive and clarifying discussions with Mr. Murphy in the past, and would like to continue communicating with the administration at all levels. We look forward to meeting with Mr. Murphy in the coming week.

However, after 25 days, we have yet to receive a response from you, President Faust, concerning our letter, and the approach that the University has taken towards budget cuts. Mr. Murphy, while he does facilitate discussion, does not have the responsibility that you, President Faust, hold as a key member of the Harvard Corporation, and as head of the University. You have significant influence over the scope and magnitude of reductions in wages, benefits, and hours. It is difficult to imagine how decisions about budget cuts can be made without input from the faculty, students, and workers.

During your address to the incoming class of 2013, you claimed to have met with SLAM, even though you have not met with us in any official capacity. We must assume that you were referring to your office hours on April 23rd, 2009, during which several SLAM members attended as individuals to speak with you about how budget cuts will directly affect hired and subcontracted workers at Harvard. Though we appreciated meeting with you as individuals, this is not an example of the collective, open dialogue we are seeking. While we look forward to student input on the budgetary working groups, we worry about the nature of your “periodic communications,” as Bill Murphy calls them in his letter. Instead of opportunities for open dialogue, we have been fielded piecemeal, obscure, and largely one-way communications. Yale’s strategy of asking the general community for suggestions has never even been discussed. In one especially telling example, during the last town hall meeting with Dean Smith and Dean Hammonds, Dean Smith demonstrated a clear lack of familiarity with the Final Report of the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies, better known as the Katz Committee Report. SLAM finds it difficult to approach these meetings in good faith when the top administrators cannot answer questions about the University’s own public statements about labor relations. Moreover, certain budgetary suggestions, such as a graduated salary reduction for top administrators and professors similar to those at Stanford, Harvard’s primary competitor for the best salaries in academia, have yet to be seriously and publicly discussed. We are certain that a more open reciprocal dialogue among the workers, faculty, students, and administrators would give rise to a more equitable, fair, and ultimately productive approach to budgetary management.

President Faust, we still await an answer from you, and our concerns will not be allayed until we are satisfied that fair and equitable decisions, made with the input of the entire Harvard community, are made with respect to budget cuts. SLAM sympathizes with the difficult decisions you must face. We would like to make sure that these decisions match your stated commitment to helping build community globally and locally.

We reiterate our gratitude for the town hall meetings and communications from the administration, but these have become solely venues for “questions and answers”; they are not discussions that allow us to enact a community-based response to the financial crunch at Harvard. We are asking for a meeting between you, President Faust, and SLAM that privileges open dialogue, thus paving the way for an alternative, more democratic approach to this crisis.

Sincerely,

The Student Labor Action Movement

Tonight Dean Hammonds held four FAQ sessions with students in Lamont, Quincy, Cabot, and Mather concerning Harvard’s “reshaping phase” of its budget cuts. Students rallied around a number of issues, including shuttle services, hot breakfasts, and the quad library. These concerns should not be taken lightly. From safety, to nutrition, to academic routines, these cuts are greatly impacting our daily lives, yet students have had no voice in this process. We at the No Layoffs campaign would like to emphasize that Harvard workers are also seriously affected by these decisions. Cutting student services at Harvard is also cutting the hours or positions of the people who provide those services--shuttle drivers, dining hall workers, janitors and clerical staff in the library. We firmly believe that ALL community members, students as well as workers, ought to have greater say in the decisions that will so keenly affect our lives. We are fighting for transparency, for people over numbers, and for greater community involvement in response to the economic crisis. Student services are people, too. So, if you believe Harvard can be cutting the budget in other ways, join the ranks, and we look forward to marching on side by side.