Word: cec
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Harvard students have conducted research for Fair Share in the past, but lately they have helped to organize field work as well, and CEC members say they like that better. "If you research, you learn about utility rates, landholding and tax rates -- but if you organize you see the people in the community, and that's important," Damman says...
Committee members work for a variety of community and labor organizations in the Boston area, in an effort to learn how these groups work to lessen economic inequalities. In addition to Local 880, the CEC offers its members placement in Mass Fair Share, Cambridge Tenants Organization and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers. The committee has about 20 to 25 members, who attend weekly dinner meetings devoted to formulating theories of change drawn from these personal experiences, Damman says...
Local 880 obtained a charter from the Service Employees International Union on the condition the international branch forego its traditional right to veto a strike vote of the local, Stephanie Van Dyke '79, another member of the CEC, says. The union also stands out in its concern for the rights of patients to good and compassionate health care, as well as the rights of hospital workers, Damman says...
Though the CEC has often worked with Local 880, committee members also work with other community organizations, some Harvard-related and some not. Van Dyke says one of the most important placement areas remains Mass Fair Share, a Boston-based organization which, among other activities, has pushed the University to increase the payments it makes to Cambridge and Boston for its tax-exempt land holdings...
...Dyke and Damman defend their committee against skeptics who might point out that there are relatively few Harvard students on the CEC, most of whom do not plan to devote their lives to community organizing. How sincere, then, are the CEC members? What effect do they ultimately have upon the social and economic injustices they are investigating...