Harvard, Boasting $40 Billion Endowment, Lays Off Dining Hall Workers Due to Wuhan Virus – IOTW Report

Harvard, Boasting $40 Billion Endowment, Lays Off Dining Hall Workers Due to Wuhan Virus

Country’s richest university cuts costs as pandemic sweeps country.

WFB: Harvard University, which has the largest endowment of any school in the country, is cutting its subcontracted dining hall workers without pay as it shuts down in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The move is drawing criticism from employment rights advocates on and off campus who point to the university’s $40.9 billion endowment as evidence that the school is hardly in financial straits. They also claim the decision violates Harvard’s wage equality policy, which requires the university to compensate dining hall contract workers in a fashion comparable to the school’s directly hired employees.

Harvard closed campus dining halls and other facilities earlier this month when it transitioned its courses online due to the outbreak. The university agreed to provide 30 days of paid leave and benefits to direct employees who were laid off, including full-time food service workers, a university spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon.

University president Lawrence Bacow and his wife tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. Bacow said he and his wife were tested Monday after experiencing symptoms Sunday and received results within 24 hours. Meanwhile, Americans across the country have reported waiting five to seven days for test results.

But the agreement does not extend to workers who were hired as subcontractors in campus dining halls, according to the Labor and Employment Action Project at Harvard Law School. read more

12 Comments on Harvard, Boasting $40 Billion Endowment, Lays Off Dining Hall Workers Due to Wuhan Virus

  1. My sister in law works for the food company that provides food to the cafeteria at Whitworth College in N. Spokane and she has been laid off for a week and according to my brother is going nuts being at home with nothing to do. Fortunately for him he runs a two person automotive shop so he’s allowed to stay at work at least for now.

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  2. liberals treating working people the way we expect them to.

    “Sorry, Cafeteria peons, but there is a crisis going on. Out, out, go somewhere else, and don’t call us, we’ll call you (makes sweeping motion with hands).”

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  3. I have always hated snobs of any kind. Condescending, looking down their noses like we’re nothing but a bunch of serfs has always bugged me. I’ve known some rich working people who you would’ve never known were rich but others who are uppity and snotty all because they went to a better college than I did or because they’re members of the lucky sperm club who think that their shit doesn’t stink are beneath my contempt.

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  4. In other news the sun is expected to rise in the east tomorrow.

    Let this have been a Christian college and they would be right there pointing fingers. These people are the most out of touch, the most elitist, the most absolutely tone deaf…

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  5. Let me guess… Harvard used to employ workers directly for these jobs but when the students protested for a living wage for university employees, the administration moved to the subcontract arrangement, keeping wages low AND abdicating responsibility for benefits.
    That’s what happened at the University near me.

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