We Are All Harvard University Dining Services Workers

When the HUDS workers announced a strike to fight for sustainable wages and healthcare I felt a surge of renewed energy. Why? I’m not a dining services worker. I have worked for 22 years in the library system as part of HUCTW (Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers), which recently accepted a concessionary contract with 25% increase to our healthcare co-pays. HUCTW did successfully bargain against even worse proposed health care increases that were forced upon Harvard’s professional non- unionized staff: http://openharv.freeforums.net/. Though I have no children, and a higher salary than the average dining services worker, I have to budget very carefully to make ends meet, factoring in the high cost of living in the Boston area, and a hefty student loan debt from my undergraduate and two Master’s degrees. I also have crohn’s disease, a chronic illness, which I have managed successfully, thanks to my health benefits. I am a little apprehensive about the coming healthcare increases in January. I can’t imagine what an enormous burden these cuts to healthcare would be to a dining hall worker who makes less money than I do, and perhaps has a family, a chronic illness, or student loan debt, because…surprise! …they too have aspirations for themselves and their families.

Reading the press releases and the spin put on salary negotiations by the university has been rather disappointing. Saying the burden of the increasing cost of healthcare should be “shared” between the employees and their powerful, wealthy employer implies there is an equal partnership. Taking on the increased cost of healthcare would not really be a financial burden to Harvard, but it would be a severe financial burden to the relatively poorly compensated dining hall workers. Comparing Harvard’s salaries to employers in the private sector who pay even less is a reversal in the image Harvard generally maintains. As a university its peers are other Ivy Leagues, but as an employer it is proud to be better than the lowest paying employers? Harvard’s non-profit tax status should more than make up for the increased cost of healthcare for employees. According to a 2014 article in NY Magazine, if you took away Harvard’s tax exempt status, it would owe the state of Massachusetts 80 million a year. (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/take-away- harvards-nonprofit- status.html).

We are all workers performing different essential functions as part of the Harvard ecosystem. No one at Harvard is more important than anyone else. Some of us have more power or opportunities for reasons having more to do with privilege than hard work, merit or intelligence. Some people cook and put food on the table for a living. All of us need food on the table to sustain our lives. We are all students. Some of us are now, have been, or will be in the future. We learn just as much from being part of a community as we do from attending a university. Right now the Harvard dining hall workers are giving us a lesson in standing up for one’s beliefs, and speaking truth to power. There is a great deal at stake for them, and coordinating a strike to fight for better wages and benefits takes great courage. They are standing up for themselves with a powerful and unanimous spirit.

Clerical workers, professors, and even most professional administrative staff have more in common with the dining hall workers than they do with the handful of administrators who make the financial decisions about salaries and wages. Many of the professional staff publically objected to the increased financial strain the cuts to health benefits would impose on them and their families. Without a union they have sustained even worse cuts to their health benefits, which is minimally offset by their salaries, and the prestige of their positions. We all get sick, we all have families to support, and lives to sustain, that is what motivates us to work hard, and aspire to better things.

When I was an undergraduate at Cornell, President Frank T. Rhodes often spoke about “nurturing” the students. “Nurturing” is an appropriate word to describe the role dining hall workers have played in our community. They provide food, and they are a caring presence to the students and the staff. At the rally Wednesday evening one student described how dining hall workers made sure she got her food when her leg was in a cast, and I heard countless similar stories. Now they are giving us an important life lesson. Sustainable wages and good health care are worth fighting for, and they are leading the charge.