Boston Globe

The Crimson to use labor in 3d world

By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 7/24/2001

The Harvard Crimson, which often editorializes in favor of a ''living wage'' for campus workers, is turning to low-cost Asian typists for the biggest undertaking in its 128-year history.

The nation's oldest continuously published college paper is creating a free Internet archive going back to its first edition, a collection of essays and poems published in 1873. When the archive is launched this year, the Crimson's president says, it may be the world's largest online newspaper repository.

But to complete the $500,000 project, the Crimson has placed itself at odds with a major cause of activists at Harvard and other campuses: stopping US business interests from exploiting low-wage, Third World workers as a source of cheap labor.

C. Matthew MacInnis, a Harvard senior and the Crimson's president, announced yesterday that he has signed a $45,000 contract to have about two-dozen Cambodian workers typeset the 19th century editions of the Crimson. Each Cambodian is paid about 40 cents an hour, a slight raise over the minimum-wage garment factory jobs they held before. A group of monks in India is typesetting the 20th century portion of the project.

''We're taking advantage of wage differentials, but we've been assured that these salaries are not only fair, but excellent for the people doing this,'' MacInnis said. ''Are we getting cheap labor? Of course. But you can't employ someone in North America to do this kind of job at this cost.''

MacInnis said the Crimson - which is independent of the university administration and funded by sales, advertising, and alumni donations - could not afford to complete the project at US wages. He acknowledged that the project put the Crimson at odds with Harvard's protest movement, as well as with the paper's own editorials this spring supporting a ''living wage'' of $10.25-an-hour for Harvard employees.

When some student activists were initially told about the Cambodia contract yesterday, they thought it was a joke.

''This seems like a prank in its outlandishness,'' said Ben McKean, a Harvard senior who helped lead last spring's 21-day sit-in on campus to demand a living wage for employees. ''Given that the Crimson editorial board endorsed our campaign, I can't believe they're indulging in the same kind of shenanigans as the university in denying people a living wage.''

Another activist, Melissa Byrne of United Students Against Sweatshops, said it was ''morally reprehensible'' for the Crimson to avoid paying a living wage and independently evaluating the working conditions for the typists.

''Anytime you go offshore to cut production costs, you can't adequately monitor how the workers are treated,'' said Byrne, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania.

But MacInnis said he has been assured by Digitial Divide Data, the US company managing the project, that the employees are being treated well.

He also insisted that the Crimson had an altruistic motive for sending the work to Cambodia.

The contract was brokered by Jeremy Hockenstein, a Harvard alumnus and a cofounder of Follow Your Dreams Cambodia, a nonprofit group trying to create high-tech jobs in the country. Working with Hockenstein, the Crimson signed the contract with Digital Divide Data, which opened an office in Phnom Penh last week and began work on the Crimson typesetting.

The job is projected to employ 20 typists working two six-hour shifts a day on 10 computers for six months. The typists earn $50 a month, better than the $45 minimum wage paid in the garment sector, Cambodia's biggest industry. The company says it will provide English lessons, pick up workers' medical expenses, and plans to raise monthly salaries to $65 after three months.

Some Cambodians are celebrating the project for helping bring the West's high-tech boom into their world. Most of the typists are disabled or poor, still suffering from a civil war that ravaged the country for almost 30 years before it ended in 1998.

''My life was hopeless before this opportunity,'' said Eng Naleak, a 20-year-old employee on the project, who was born with only two fingers and a thumb on each hand. Her ability to type 30 words a minute in English gave her an edge over slower candidates. ''Disabled persons in Cambodia are never given priority for jobs.''

Nhev Sithsophary, general manager for Digital Divide Data, said data-entry jobs are ideal for many workers in the nation of 11 million. ''Our workers here have few skills and little education, but they type very fast,'' he said.

The 1873-99 editions of the Crimson have been transferred from microfilm to digital images on CD-ROMs, which are shipped to Cambodia. If all goes according to schedule, about 60 years of Crimson issues will be online this fall, and the full complement dating from 1873 will be available by Christmas.

MacInnis said the 19th century editions are particularly tricky work. For example, the papers listed the dates and locations of exams and the score of sports games.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001