Starving for Social Justice

A hunger strike at Harvard sparks debate over activists’ tactics.

By Josh Patashnik, Harvard University

On Thursday, May 3, 11 Harvard University students began a hunger strike in protest of the university’s decision not to intervene in stalled contract negotiations between campus security guards and AlliedBarton, a firm with which the university subcontracts to provide security services.

The hunger strike has drawn support from a diverse array of some two dozen student groups, and has called attention to long-simmering issues of labor relations at Harvard. More than 1,000 undergraduates have signed a petition in support of the security guards. But the strike has come under fire from some students on both the left and right sides of the campus political spectrum, who say it is an overreaction to a relatively minor grievance.

The security guards are represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 615. Their contract demands include higher wages, more regular work schedules, fair grievance procedures, and an end to alleged “de facto acts of union busting” such as punishing workers for union involvement. The demand for a wage hike has been the focal point of the campaign. According to the Stand for Security Coalition, which is organizing the hunger strike, security guards employed through AlliedBarton are paid a starting wage of $12.68 per hour, compared to the $14.40 minimum hourly wage paid to Harvard dining hall workers and the $18.64 starting wage for security guards at neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Larry Rubin, a spokesperson for AlliedBarton, blamed SEIU for the holdup in negotiations. According to Rubin, SEIU negotiators brought protesters to the most recent bargaining session and declined to conduct negotiations without the protesters present. “AlliedBarton has held seven bargaining sessions with the SEIU’s bargaining team thus far, and we believe we are making real progress toward an agreement,” Rubin told Campus Progress. He denied that the company had fired or disciplined workers for union activities, as SEIU has alleged.

Because the workers are employed by AlliedBarton, rather than directly by the university, Harvard has refrained from getting involved in the dispute. “Harvard should not, need not, and will not intervene in this process,” wrote the university’s Vice President for Human Resources, Marilyn Hausammann, in a May 7 op-ed in the Harvard Crimson, the campus daily.

In 2002 in the wake of a 21-day occupation by student activists of Massachusetts Hall, which houses the office of Harvard’s president, the university established the Wage and Benefit Parity Policy. The policy stipulates that all campus workers employed through subcontractors must receive wages and benefits on par with those received by comparable university workers.

The university’s contract with AlliedBarton was deemed in compliance with the policy by independent auditors last spring, and is currently under review again. Student activists are skeptical, given the wage discrepancy between security guards and other Harvard workers. “It’s just fundamentally inconsistent for Harvard to say they have this policy and then not intervene in this dispute,” said Seth Flaxman, a junior from Evanston, Ill., and member of Stand for Security.

The strikers say they have exhausted all other avenues of persuading Harvard to get involved. “We’ve gone through all the less drastic steps, the discussions with the university, but it hasn’t had an effect,” said Alyssa Aguilera, a junior from San Antonio who is participating in the hunger strike. “We had no other way to express the urgency of this issue.” She noted that hunger strikes had been successful in helping increase wages for workers at other universities, including Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Miami (Fla.).

Five days into the hunger strike, Aguilera said she was in significant physical discomfort and was having difficulty staying awake at times. The strikers are being advised by a physician at Harvard University Health Services. During the strike, they are consuming only water, sodium tablets, and 2–3 glasses of Gatorade per day.

The coalition is notable for the diversity of the student groups involved, including many cultural groups traditionally wary of weighing in on hot-button political issues. Members of the Stand for Security Coalition include not just the main liberal groups on campus like the Harvard College Democrats, Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), and Harvard Progressive Advocacy Group (HPAG), but also groups like the Black Students Association, South Asian Women’s Collective, and Fuerza Latina.

“A lot of the workers are of minority backgrounds,” said Nworah Ayogu, a freshman from Columbus, Ohio, and member of the Black Men’s Forum, which is part of the coalition. “Our cultural groups are here to do more than contribute to student life on campus. Being a voice on behalf of black communities in Dorchester, Mattapan [two low-income, predominantly minority neighborhoods in Boston]—that’s what we’re all about.”

The effort has also been endorsed by the Undergraduate Council, the college’s elected student government, generally better known for long and tedious debates about the minutiae of parliamentary procedure than for taking stands on political questions.

Yet support for the hunger strike is far from unanimous. “A hunger strike is a wildly inappropriate way to conduct this sort of advocacy, both because it is disproportionate to the direness of the situation and unbecoming of an academic community that believes in the power of rational discourse to work out problems,” editorialized the center-left Crimson on May 7.

Email lists dedicated to political discussion have been abuzz with debate over the hunger strike. Not surprisingly, sentiment on the Harvard Republican Club’s email list has run strongly against the strikers. “Would it be possible to have a BBQ counter-protest to the hunger strike? With some burgers, maybe some brisket, and other assorted tasty items? Something that would emanate a lovely aroma over the entirety of the yard? Because that would be just awesome,” wrote John Wilson, a sophomore in the club, in an email to the list.

A majority of the College Democrats seems to back the hunger strike, but there is no shortage of dissent on the club’s email list. “Hunger strikes are not for consciousness-raising. They are for a last-ditch attempt to get out of a desperate situation. Anything less compromises the effectiveness of hunger strikes as a method of serious protest,” wrote Max Mishkin, a sophomore from Wynnewood, Pa., in an email to the list.

The hunger strikers say that if Harvard fails to meet their demands, they will continue the strike for as long as their doctor believes they are not at risk of death or serious injury.

Rubin said more negotiating sessions are scheduled for this week.

Josh Patashnik is a senior at Harvard from San Diego. He is a signatory of the petition supporting the security guards. He can be reached at patashn@fas.harvard.edu.

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