PSLM Occupies Mass. Hall

Nearly 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement began a sit-in at Massachusetts Hall at 1:30 p.m. today, planning to remain indefinitely in the administrative building to demand a living wage of $10.25 per hour for all Harvard employees.

PSLM members say their protest—strategically located in the building housing the office of University President Neil L. Rudenstine—also demands that the University join the Worker’s Rights Consortium, an independent factory monitoring board.

Student activists—mostly undergraduates, with about as dozen graduate students—entered the building smoothly from the basement of Matthews Hall, armed with bags of food and tanks of water.

They have secured themselves in the halls of the administrative building by linking arms while singing, chanting and reading testimony from Harvard workers.

About six Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) members, including Police Chief Francis D. “Bud” Riley are currently inside Mass Hall, while another half dozen stand directly outside the doors.

“We’re not going to arrest anyone,” Riley said. “We know three-quarters of these protestors by their first names.”

While some administrators have remained inside during the protest thus far, Rudenstine exited the building at approximately 4 p.m. to the shouts of protestors outside.

About 30 students are circling Mass Hall under the leadership of PSLM member Amy C. Offner ’01, chanting and holding posters calling for a living wage.

“We’re expecting stiff resistance from the University,” Offner said. She said the sit-in represents a necessary escalation in PSLM’s strategy.

“We’ve done a whole variety of tactics—teach-ins, rallies, and [the administration] refuses to respond,” Offner said.

The sit-in has already attracted the attention of the national media, including the National Public Radio (NPR) and The New York Times.

Garrett M. Graff contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.

FILED approximately 4 p.m.