Word: pslm
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Still, there were a few who saw the PSLM as both unjustified and unhelpful in bringing light to the issue. James R. Salzmann ’02 says that he feels “more negative to the PSLM” after the sit-in and that the group “should have continued to speak with the administration instead of breaking the law.” Another student was more caustic, commenting that while the PSLM may “have their hearts in the right place,” it’s “easy...
...grabbed the support of top political figures like AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Massachusetts senators Kerry and Kennedy, and secured an alliance with unions, student opinion is still divided. Only one student FM spoke to said she was swayed in favor of a living wage by the sit-in.The PSLM has definitely raised awareness about the living wage, but its success at raising support remains in doubt...
...PSLM members may recognize this themselves. In hindsight, many are quick to point out things they would have done differently to change their image and appeal more to their peers...
Elfenbein finds it disappointing that “often the only edge to the story that journalists could see was the opportunity for sticking it to Harvard.” All PSLM members interviewed for this story complained that often the focus of media coverage was not the plight of campus workers, but instead the thought of Harvard students skipping classes and generally defying the Ivy Leaguer stereotype. Elfenbein ruefully accounts her experiences with one journalist, who exclaimed “Wow! It must really smell in there!” as being representative of a typically superficial attitude lacking...
DiMaggio was particuarly conscious that the students were being presented as “a model of altruistic sentiment,” which complicated the notion of solidarity by placing the students above the workers as their “saviors,” a role which the PSLM actively decries. Moreover, he explains that a common media angle would be to use the PSLM actions as a nostalgic trigger for the journalist to wax lyrical on “the good old days of protest”: the baby boomer sixties. “They would...