Teeksa Photography
Photography of
Skip Schiel
Photographing the Living Wage Campaign
at Harvard University, spring 2001
By Skip Schiel
Teeksa Photography
Photography of
Skip Schiel
Photographing the Living Wage Campaign
at Harvard University, spring 2001
By Skip Schiel
A stirring building
take over at Harvard, by students, in support of the Living Wage Campaign. Some
50 students have been in an administration building (Massachusetts hall) for
nearly a week, demanding that Harvard—with an endowment exceeding 17 billion
dollars—pay everyone a min of $10.25 hourly, calculated to be a just-get-by
wage for the Boston area. Many, some 1000 workers, both directly employed by
Harvard or employed by subcontractors, earn less. Outside, tents are springing
up, at last count, some 40 of them, filled with overnight supporters.
The take over is well organized, as you’d expect from young bright virile
and nubile Harvard students—the publicity, the daily vigils and rallies,
bringing in luminaries like Ted Kennedy and Robert Reich and Howard Zinn and
Ken Reeves (Cambridge city council) to speak in support, videotaping the interior
action and playing it at vigils, specific requests to supporters categorized
by relation to Harvard, and in other ways spreading the word, the excitement,
the need for coalition. With friends, I have been several times there; I now
proudly wear the Living Wage badge, and intend to make calls to administrators
who affect policy.
Sure this is springtime and tends to be when students oppose and propose. Yes,
you might wonder why this issue which probably doesn’t affect many students
directly. And you could question the tactics, an illegal act. But—I’m
not sure they make this point clearly—the living wage is a significant
piece of the larger picture, that of corporate dominance, the rise of greed,
limitless exploitation, duplicity, dishonoring of human beings, profit before
humanity. It might grow from the anti-sweatshop movement, this in turn from
the anti-apartheid movement, and both related to the anti-war and civil rights
movements of the 1950s and 60s.
A weakness might be its relatively tangential nature. Harvard students are not
likely to be paid substandard wages when they graduate, or even presently. Nor
have a history in their family of such treatment. Contrast that detachment from
the pain of the issue with the immediacy of the civil rights and anti war movements:
black people were directly affected by racial injustice and played a leading
role in righting the wrongs, and students were subject to the draft, might be
sent to Vietnam. Yet in both cases many who participated in those movements
were themselves not directly burdened by the injustice. Freedom Summer of 1964
was in large part white cadre going south, and I suspect many students opposing
the war were either deferred or female and therefore not potential fodder. Detachment
can be a weakness, but let’s not underrate the power of empathy and altruism,
especially among youth.
One day, with
my photojournalism class, I scouted, probed, tried, asked, learned, but probably
only made more or less pedestrian photos. I did chat with a woman police officer
from Harvard about her life on duty, 12 hrs standing , with breaks, but she
declined telling me her own private views of the action. (Later, when I considered
making some photos of her and a companion officer, he resisted—I stopped.)
I did inquire of the man setting up a Jewish Shabbat service, but he felt photography
might be inappropriate—"Some," he said, "participating tonight,
are not really practicing Jews, and might not wish to be identified as such
in a photo."
I did converse with a middle-aged couple who was reading signs when I approached
them to photograph. They told me how moved they were by the idealism and altruism
of the students. This seems a recurring theme: what do the students have to
gain, other than justice for others? And what do they give in return? Some small
scale suffering, living nearly 3 weeks in an administration building, away from
classes and libraries during the end of semester.
"Where are the workers?", Luiz, one of my students, asked me. And
I had to reply, "Usually not here, but workers more generally are often
here, in the form of union leadership and members." The action is mainly
by young white students, most likely immune for life from such slender wages.
Rob, another student, explained that often workers like those who might benefit
from this campaign are too busy working several jobs, too tired after work,
too afraid of speaking out or siding with a political campaign that opposes
the practices of their employers. Indeed, as I tried to photograph workers off
site, I came up against this very fact.
While touring
the Holyoke Center, the small mall owned by Harvard, closing down for the night,
I spotted several workers that may have been employed directly or indirectly
by Harvard. First, a Hispanic-appearing man pushing a cleaning carousel and
dragging a vacuum cleaner suddenly emerged from an office. Could I photograph
him? As I was about to follow him out a non-public door, a woman security officer
came near me, looking puzzled by the door opening, and so I curtailed my pursuit.
Could I photography her? Now or eventually?
But first, a young couple, punk, the woman wearing tight shorts, with extravagantly
beautiful legs, was kissing outside a shop along the Holyoke Center, and I snuck
a few wide angle pictures, probably miserably distant, before they fled across
the street. Then the first man I’d noticed, the janitor, suddenly came
out a door along the street, pushing his array of cleaning gear, pulling his
vacuum cleaner. He stood quietly, still, and I snapped a few, surreptitiously.
I followed him as he ascended the same ramp I’d seen him descend 20 minutes
earlier. This time with my camera to my eye, aiming, checking light, I snapped
more.
Sensing action down a road ramp into the bowels of the Holyoke Center, I scouted,
I found 2 darker skinned men assembling a hose so they could wash down the parking
garage sidewalk. More snuck photos, until one fellow seemed to notice me, glared.
I considered talking to them, but what would I say? "I’m working with
the Living Wage Campaign, trying to show people who work for below standard
wages, can I include you?"
Would they trust me? Would they understand me? I considered asking Luiz to join
me, since he speaks Spanish. But all to naught, I went ahead with the means
available, afraid nothing of value will emerge, other than the insight that
a further step in my project of showing the Living Wage campaign would be to
show the workers.
Upstairs, wandering a nearly deserted mall, I met and chatted with a sturdy
looking black security officer sitting behind a desk by the elevators. I pointed
to my Living Wage badge, mumbled something about supporting the campaign, and
he vociferously complained about the disturbance those of the campaign made
in the mall that very afternoon. Parading, chanting, shouting, carrying signs—someone
called the police. But when we got to a finer analysis, and he realized that
despite being employed by a company that wasn’t Harvard, the company was
contracting with Harvard, and he was not receiving a living wage.
Ah, his eyes brightened, he made connections, and I thought maybe now the time
is ripe to pop the question, "Might I photography you, since I am trying
to include in my series not only protesters, but those whose lives might be
benefited by a successful conclusion of the camp?"
Not to be. He noted first that no photos were allowed in the complex without permission, a dodge, I thought, but also without saying directly, he gave notice that he’d rather not officially participate in the manner I was asking, by being photographed. Another no show, another idea for a further step.
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