A Closer Look at Employment Policies

President Rudenstine has asked me to meet on his behalf with students involved with the Living Wage Campaign. I had the first of those meetings this week, and I'd like to take the chance to communicate with the wider community about this issue.

At the outset, let me make it clear that, as an institution, Harvard is concerned about fairness and encourages its students to think about and analyze for themselves critical issues of the day. On an open campus, all viewpoints are respected and acknowledged. When issues are raised about the University's policies or practices, they are seriously considered.

As a major employer, the University is committed to providing its regular employees with a total compensation package, including wages and benefits, that is both competitive and fair. There are many administrative procedures to guide the University's compensation policies, including seven collective bargaining agreements now in place. All of our regular, full-time employees, both union and non-union, receive total compensation above the $10 per hour "living wage" level that the students have proposed.

However, many people who work at the University are not regular employees. They work for the University on a temporary basis and, in many instances, are employees of organizations that have contracted to provide specific services to the University. For these employees who work as casuals or contract workers, standards of fairness are harder to assess and policies to regulate their pay are more difficult to administer.

President Rudenstine has formed a new Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies to review the University's policies with regard to that "contingent workforce" and to make recommendations to the Deans and others, and ultimately to him. The committee, which will be chaired by Quinn Mills, a professor of business administrations, has just been formed and will begin its work shortly.

While I expect that most Harvard students have experienced firsthand the complexities involved in such administrative decisions as admissions and dorm assignments for an extraordinarily diverse student body, I doubt that many have considered the range of factors that must inform decisions about compensation for Harvard's employees. Harvard employs more than 14,000 individuals to perform an enormous range of tasks. They work for different parts of the University and they live in cities and towns throughout the Boston area, in other parts of the country and in other parts of the world. In any given week, there are as many as 1,200-1,500 individuals working in short-term positions on the University's casual payroll. Who is hired for these positions and how much they are paid is at the discretion of local managers.

For the last year, the University has been engaged in an extensive review of its casual workforce and has also worked with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) to resolve a number of issues related to these employees. Similarly, contracting for outside services is decentralized, meaning that there are hundreds of individuals throughout the University who are empowered to decide how much to pay for a job they need done.

The new committee must review the policies in place to guide decision about compensation for contingent workers and consider what it means to pay these workers fairly. The students' proposal will be only one of the options the committee will consider. But because of the student interest in that issue, I will focus briefly on the kinds of questions that the living wage proposal raises.

Some argue that the University should adopt the $10 per hour "living wage." This is indeed the figure currently under consideration by the City of Cambridge. However, several Harvard schools (Medical, Dental and Business Schools and the School of Public Health) are located in Boston. Many Harvard workers live in Boston, which has adopted a "living wage" of $8.23 per hour. Others live in other surrounding communities that have not defined or adopted "living wages." Harvard also has employees working in other U.S. cities and in several countries. If Harvard were to adopt a "living wage," by what measure would that wage be established?

The students appear to be interested solely in hourly wages as a standard. This viewpoint ignores the considerable impact of other forms of compensation, including benefits and paid time off in any assessment of fairness. Some of those who work at the University for other employers receive a total compensation package that includes benefits, time off and other extras. Is it reasonable to adopt a "living wage" based on hourly wages alone without consideration of total compensation?

The students are asking that the University, as a private employer, embrace a concept of "living wage" that has been adopted only by municipalities and which has applied only to city employees and to entities with large municipal contracts. Should a large private employer like Harvard, whose employees live in many different areas, comport itself in relation to the cities which spend public funds to pay workers who likely live where they work?

In addition to the discussions of the living wage issues, the committee will also consider other factors that traditionally are considered in determining wages: the local labor market; the kind of work being performed; working conditions; the existence of labor agreements to which a contractor has committed that are outside of Harvard's purview and that may well include benefits; and the University's obligation to exercise the fiscal prudence necessary to maintain high academic and research standards while holding tuition costs down.

With this degree of complexity involved, the committee's deliberations will not be simple and they are not apt to be quick. However, the president and I are as committed as the students to the goal of ensuring that Harvard's relationship with its workers at all levels is respectful and fair. Our compensation policies must reflect that goal. We believe that an appropriate process has been established to achieve those ends.

Harvey V. Fineberg '67 is the University Provost.