Harvard Backtracks and Agrees to Pay Dining Hall Workers During Shutdown

Harvard Backtracks and Agrees to Pay Dining Hall Workers During Shutdown

The Washington Free Beacon claims their widely circulated report helped change this situation.

Alana Goodman reports:

Harvard Agrees to Pay Dining Hall Workers After Free Beacon Report

Facing pressure and protests from employment rights advocates on and off campus, Harvard University on Friday agreed to pay its contract dining hall employees and other workers through the end of the semester.

Student groups launched a call-in campaign last Friday aimed at administrators after the university said it planned to pay its direct-hire dining employees for just 30 days after their jobs were eliminated and did not extend the paid leave to contract workers.

Harvard has the largest endowment of any school in the country at $40.9 billion. The school shut down its dining halls and other campus facilities after it transitioned to online learning in response to the coronavirus pandemic earlier this month.

Jason Newton, a spokesman for the university, told the Washington Free Beacon that Harvard had agreed to provide “pay and benefits to direct-hire and contract workers through May 28, and also financial relief to keep the childcare centers on Harvard’s campus open through June 30, ensuring pay and benefits for their 180 employees.”

The decision was announced in a letter to administrators on Friday.

“For our workforce, who each day are so critical to the success of this institution, this unprecedented public health emergency has created innumerable challenges,” said Harvard executive vice president Katie Lapp in a letter to the university’s deans. “The steps I share today are aimed at providing greater certainty for them in these uncertain times with regards to their pay and benefits, and greater stability for them and their families.”

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