Students Protest Layoffs at Faust Lunch

A small contingent of students from Harvard’s Student Labor Action Movement unfurled a protest banner and politely requested that the University avoid layoffs during an intimate lunch event with University President Drew G. Faust and seven Eliot residents.

SLAM, a student organization that advocates on behalf of Harvard staff, interrupted Faust’s noontime meal with a warm welcome and round of applause.

They then presented her with an open letter and an oversized cotton T-shirt.

In the letter—addressed to the President and the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body—SLAM called upon the University to rehire all workers who have been fired since October 2008.

“Harvard faces a choice: we can choose either to use our wealth in order to strengthen our community—students, faculty, and workers together—or to allow greed and fear to divide us and erode our institution of higher learning,” the letter read.

In recent weeks, SLAM, whose Web site sports the slogan “GREED is the new Crimson,” has left pamphlets in Annenberg Hall while chanting “No layoffs!” SLAM members have also joined union members in protesting layoffs of nine subcontracted custodians at Harvard Medical School.

“What we really want to encourage was the kind of dialogue that other institutions like MIT have, where students have input into where budget cuts can be made,” said Alyssa M. Aguilera ’08-09, a SLAM member.

To date, Harvard has not yet laid off any employees, but University officials have conceded that layoffs still remain a possibility pending a review of responses to the early retirement packages offered to staff members this spring.

The 45-day period given to staff members at the Faculty of Arts and Science to accept the package ended on April 6.

Aguilera said she hoped their efforts would raise awareness of labor issues within the Harvard community.

“It’s not like the only thing we’ve done is bother Drew Faust in Eliot dining hall,” Aguilera said. “It’s all part of a bigger campaign.”

After less than five minutes, the SLAM members left Faust to her Diet Coke and salad.

One Eliot resident at the roundtable expressed confusion over the unexpected intrusion.

“For a second, I thought those were people from Adams,” he said.

Faust visited Winthrop House for lunch in February.

—Staff writer Athena Y. Jiang can be reached at ajiang@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.