They do a little education on the side.
March 10, 2017 6:32 AM Subscribe
. . .Which brings us back to all those strange Harvard Crimson corrections, appended in 2013 and 2014 to articles dating back to 2005. Each one reads: “An earlier version of headline of this article and statements in the article stated that the DoubleTree Suites hotel is Harvard-owned. To clarify, the company is housed in a Harvard-owned building.” Harvard’s sudden reticence to claim its property stemmed from a straightforward labor dispute that would last three years and, in the end, lay bare the tension between a burgeoning corporate feminism and the rights of working-class women.
It just amazes me that an institution like Harvard, which is swimming in money, would completely bungle something that would make them look so good with so little cost. But then again, there's nothing about those who hold wealth and their ability to avoid anything resembling "good" that should surprise me anymore.
posted by xingcat at 6:48 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by xingcat at 6:48 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
I looked up the definition of "burning water" on urban dictionary, and it had nothing to do with cooking, I hope.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:00 AM on March 10, 2017
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:00 AM on March 10, 2017
To paraphrase a recent Chapo Trap House; "I don't think the important question is why there aren't more women billionaires, the question should be why are there billionaires."
I don't want a politics that insists on equal opportunity sizing for the boot on the neck of the workers.
posted by turntraitor at 7:29 AM on March 10, 2017 [16 favorites]
I don't want a politics that insists on equal opportunity sizing for the boot on the neck of the workers.
posted by turntraitor at 7:29 AM on March 10, 2017 [16 favorites]
I don't even know how to express my frustrations with very successful women who push for better treatment for women in their class but ignore the struggles of women who are not already financially successful and want to call their struggle "feminism". It is not feminism unless all women are included. It is not feminism if it is not intersectional. It's great that she got pregnancy parking for herself and other high-level Google employees, but it's telling that she didn't say anything about what that did or did not mean for the women who cleaned the buildings or worked in the kitchen.
I guess we know.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:50 AM on March 10, 2017 [15 favorites]
I guess we know.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:50 AM on March 10, 2017 [15 favorites]
So many great things in this article about the structure of power in America. Gender, capital, political power and race all intersecting in one hotel. So many kinds of powers colliding: A massive financial corporation which, on the side, educates America's powerful political elite; the precarious power of mostly coloured women workers organizing; the power of the police called to remove them when they ask for a hearing; the ambiguous power of women who've broken into the boys' club and would like to change it but would also like to stay in the club.
Go UNITE HERE!
posted by clawsoon at 7:50 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Go UNITE HERE!
posted by clawsoon at 7:50 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
It just amazes me that an institution like Harvard, which is swimming in money, would completely bungle something that would make them look so good with so little cost.
This is a routine occurrence for them. Last fall, it was a dining hall workers' strike, which also gave the university an enormous black eye when they tried to play hardball with the demands that the workers be paid year-round.
It's really difficult to fathom what sort of morally bankrupt monster would look at a $50 billion endowment, and think "Nope, it would be a net loss to the university if we pay this predominantly Hispanic and female staff enough to live within twenty miles of where they work." But maybe that surfeit of empathy is why I'm not earning the big bucks.
posted by Mayor West at 8:21 AM on March 10, 2017 [11 favorites]
This is a routine occurrence for them. Last fall, it was a dining hall workers' strike, which also gave the university an enormous black eye when they tried to play hardball with the demands that the workers be paid year-round.
It's really difficult to fathom what sort of morally bankrupt monster would look at a $50 billion endowment, and think "Nope, it would be a net loss to the university if we pay this predominantly Hispanic and female staff enough to live within twenty miles of where they work." But maybe that surfeit of empathy is why I'm not earning the big bucks.
posted by Mayor West at 8:21 AM on March 10, 2017 [11 favorites]
Last fall, it was a dining hall workers' strike, which also gave the university an enormous black eye when they tried to play hardball with the demands that the workers be paid year-round.
Watching that one play out really made me wonder what kind of pressures are being applied behind the scenes. I mean, Drew Faust is a historian of suffering in the Civil War (amazing book). I don't think her natural inclination is to put on the jackboots. Yet the university took a really unnecessarily hard line against the dining hall workers.
It's not as simple as a "$50 billion endowment"; in bad economic times, even a place like Harvard can have a perilously low free cash flow and a huge infrastructure to maintain; but the margins aren't that slim.
posted by praemunire at 8:59 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Watching that one play out really made me wonder what kind of pressures are being applied behind the scenes. I mean, Drew Faust is a historian of suffering in the Civil War (amazing book). I don't think her natural inclination is to put on the jackboots. Yet the university took a really unnecessarily hard line against the dining hall workers.
It's not as simple as a "$50 billion endowment"; in bad economic times, even a place like Harvard can have a perilously low free cash flow and a huge infrastructure to maintain; but the margins aren't that slim.
posted by praemunire at 8:59 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
praemunire: I mean, Drew Faust is a historian of suffering in the Civil War (amazing book). I don't think her natural inclination is to put on the jackboots. Yet the university took a really unnecessarily hard line against the dining hall workers.
Don't underestimate the distance between intellectual understanding and sympathy (or empathy), and the even greater distance between sympathy and acting against your personal/corporate interest.
posted by clawsoon at 9:17 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Don't underestimate the distance between intellectual understanding and sympathy (or empathy), and the even greater distance between sympathy and acting against your personal/corporate interest.
posted by clawsoon at 9:17 AM on March 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's not as simple as a "$50 billion endowment"; in bad economic times, even a place like Harvard can have a perilously low free cash flow and a huge infrastructure to maintain; but the margins aren't that slim.
Any cash flow issues would be entirely of their own making, having chosen to tie up more of their ginormous endowment in illiquid investments in order to seek out some kind of illiquidity premium. $50 billion is a truly staggering sum and they could totally afford to change how it's invested to accommodate greater cash flow needs (but of course that doesn't earn your investment managers accolades and huge bonuses for being clever).
posted by indubitable at 9:29 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Any cash flow issues would be entirely of their own making, having chosen to tie up more of their ginormous endowment in illiquid investments in order to seek out some kind of illiquidity premium. $50 billion is a truly staggering sum and they could totally afford to change how it's invested to accommodate greater cash flow needs (but of course that doesn't earn your investment managers accolades and huge bonuses for being clever).
posted by indubitable at 9:29 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
(Their endowment appears to be valued at $36.449 billion as of 2015. Still a staggering amount of money, and the largest university endowment in the US)
posted by indubitable at 9:36 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by indubitable at 9:36 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Watching that one play out really made me wonder what kind of pressures are being applied behind the scenes.
Basic class interests? If you pay people better you have less power over them; if you fold in a labor dispute you weaken the negotiating position of your fellow plutocrats.
posted by PMdixon at 9:51 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
Basic class interests? If you pay people better you have less power over them; if you fold in a labor dispute you weaken the negotiating position of your fellow plutocrats.
posted by PMdixon at 9:51 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
Any cash flow issues would be entirely of their own making, having chosen to tie up more of their ginormous endowment in illiquid investments in order to seek out some kind of illiquidity premium. $50 billion is a truly staggering sum and they could totally afford to change how it's invested to accommodate greater cash flow needs
Eh, if you put all that money in Treasuries you'd be able to pull out any cash you want, but you'd also be viewed as irresponsible. For all my massive concerns about private equity, there are some non-evil reasons so many very large funds that have to be confident in their ability to consistently meet large expenses for the entire foreseeable future end up investing in that sector. The illiquidity premium works as a subsidy for the lower-risk investments. (Or, at least, in theory it does.)
If you know of a nice non-volatile investment that reliably returns significantly above inflation net of costs, especially at the volume Harvard would need, please do steer me towards it!
the even greater distance between sympathy and acting against your personal/corporate interest.
Drew Faust isn't getting a cut of any savings on the dining-hall workers' contract, and part of her job is to determine what Harvard's corporate interest as a nonprofit (which does not have to maximize revenues at all costs) is. My point is, she's not some finance stooge by nature, and I really doubt she is the one driving this strategy. I would like to know who is.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Eh, if you put all that money in Treasuries you'd be able to pull out any cash you want, but you'd also be viewed as irresponsible. For all my massive concerns about private equity, there are some non-evil reasons so many very large funds that have to be confident in their ability to consistently meet large expenses for the entire foreseeable future end up investing in that sector. The illiquidity premium works as a subsidy for the lower-risk investments. (Or, at least, in theory it does.)
If you know of a nice non-volatile investment that reliably returns significantly above inflation net of costs, especially at the volume Harvard would need, please do steer me towards it!
the even greater distance between sympathy and acting against your personal/corporate interest.
Drew Faust isn't getting a cut of any savings on the dining-hall workers' contract, and part of her job is to determine what Harvard's corporate interest as a nonprofit (which does not have to maximize revenues at all costs) is. My point is, she's not some finance stooge by nature, and I really doubt she is the one driving this strategy. I would like to know who is.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Basic class interests? If you pay people better you have less power over them
I think you may not fully appreciate the amounts at dispute here and how little they would actually affect the power balance between Harvard and hotel janitors. That's part of what makes these disputes so disgusting to contemplate: how little difference it would make to the university, how much to the day-to-day lives of its employees.
if you fold in a labor dispute you weaken the negotiating position of your fellow plutocrats.
I would like to suggest that while one's economic theories may well capture dynamics on a large scale, that does not mean that they necessarily apply perfectly to every individual scenario. Real plutocrats would make Drew Faust come in via the service entrance. She's a nothing (from that point of view), a professor married to another professor. Her net worth is a rounding error. She's not sitting up nights trying to figure out how to weaken the negotiating positions of the American service classes for her fellow fat-cats. My impression is that universities have gotten dangerously into the pockets of corporate interests in the last few decades, so I would like to understand the ways in which that might be playing out here (and at other wealthy universities).
posted by praemunire at 10:09 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
I think you may not fully appreciate the amounts at dispute here and how little they would actually affect the power balance between Harvard and hotel janitors. That's part of what makes these disputes so disgusting to contemplate: how little difference it would make to the university, how much to the day-to-day lives of its employees.
if you fold in a labor dispute you weaken the negotiating position of your fellow plutocrats.
I would like to suggest that while one's economic theories may well capture dynamics on a large scale, that does not mean that they necessarily apply perfectly to every individual scenario. Real plutocrats would make Drew Faust come in via the service entrance. She's a nothing (from that point of view), a professor married to another professor. Her net worth is a rounding error. She's not sitting up nights trying to figure out how to weaken the negotiating positions of the American service classes for her fellow fat-cats. My impression is that universities have gotten dangerously into the pockets of corporate interests in the last few decades, so I would like to understand the ways in which that might be playing out here (and at other wealthy universities).
posted by praemunire at 10:09 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
And that's about the Trustees ("overseers" in Harvard lingo) rather than Faust.
posted by Miko at 10:55 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 10:55 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Drew Faust isn't getting a cut of any savings on the dining-hall workers' contract
I was speaking too abstractly: In this case, her personal interest lies in not pissing off the overseers and getting fired.
My point is, she's not some finance stooge by nature, and I really doubt she is the one driving this strategy. I would like to know who is.
Aye. Maybe it's one of the management corp assistants who's making $25 million?
posted by clawsoon at 11:32 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was speaking too abstractly: In this case, her personal interest lies in not pissing off the overseers and getting fired.
My point is, she's not some finance stooge by nature, and I really doubt she is the one driving this strategy. I would like to know who is.
Aye. Maybe it's one of the management corp assistants who's making $25 million?
posted by clawsoon at 11:32 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
It just amazes me that an institution like Harvard, which is swimming in money, would completely bungle something that would make them look so good with so little cost.
This is an institution that, within the lifetime of people now living, awarded class credit to students who volunteered to attack the striking women and children textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, an act for which it has never expressed the slightest regret (cite). If you expect anything other than craven greed and class hatred from Harvard, you're choosing to ignore long precedent and common sense.
posted by enn at 11:39 AM on March 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
This is an institution that, within the lifetime of people now living, awarded class credit to students who volunteered to attack the striking women and children textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, an act for which it has never expressed the slightest regret (cite). If you expect anything other than craven greed and class hatred from Harvard, you're choosing to ignore long precedent and common sense.
posted by enn at 11:39 AM on March 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
if you fold in a labor dispute you weaken the negotiating position of your fellow plutocrats.
Yeah wow it would be so terrible if an institution that could afford to pay people at the very bottom of their pay scale a little bit better did that, thus nudging everyone else who was similarly situated to be a little less awful to the people at the bottom of their pay scale and taking a tiny step to better the lives of people who have very little negotiating power of their own. I mean what would happen to the state of the world! Workers might get sick days and be able to pay their bills! The horror! The absolute horror!
posted by bile and syntax at 11:59 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah wow it would be so terrible if an institution that could afford to pay people at the very bottom of their pay scale a little bit better did that, thus nudging everyone else who was similarly situated to be a little less awful to the people at the bottom of their pay scale and taking a tiny step to better the lives of people who have very little negotiating power of their own. I mean what would happen to the state of the world! Workers might get sick days and be able to pay their bills! The horror! The absolute horror!
posted by bile and syntax at 11:59 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Proud to be UNITE HERE!
posted by Unioncat at 12:06 PM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Unioncat at 12:06 PM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Workers might get sick days and be able to pay their bills! The horror! The absolute horror!
Yes. Who gets the surplus in an exchange is determined mostly by who can most afford for the exchange to fall through. The closer people are to subsistence level, the greater a given change in income level affects bargaining power. So it's at the bottom that you as a wealth controller must not give in, or else everyone else's bargaining power goes up. Loss aversion is very real. As are positional goods.
And I guarantee you Drew Faust identifies as more like the type of person who runs Harvard than as the type of person who cleans it.
posted by PMdixon at 2:18 PM on March 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yes. Who gets the surplus in an exchange is determined mostly by who can most afford for the exchange to fall through. The closer people are to subsistence level, the greater a given change in income level affects bargaining power. So it's at the bottom that you as a wealth controller must not give in, or else everyone else's bargaining power goes up. Loss aversion is very real. As are positional goods.
And I guarantee you Drew Faust identifies as more like the type of person who runs Harvard than as the type of person who cleans it.
posted by PMdixon at 2:18 PM on March 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
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posted by eotvos at 6:37 AM on March 10, 2017 [8 favorites]