Re: Working for love.

Martha Fay (fay@tlc.harvard.edu)
Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:41:51 -0500 (EST)

I'm an SVS parent and have read all the by-laws and would like to make it
absolutely clear that SVS pays all its staff, even in their first year of
employment. Historically, I believe that staff were not paid during the
first year of the school's existence. I think that there has been some
confusion about which "first year" we have been talking about.

On Tue, 31 Mar 1998, Naomi Gold wrote:

> people's labour without compensating for it. What I find extraordinary,
> or bizarre as you put it, is that SVS feels ENTITLED to people's FREE
> LABOUR. And they get it because the school is such a unique and
> worthwhile place. There is a sense that if you want to be there, you have
> to prove yourself worthy by, among other things, being willing to work for
> free. This is exploitation, pure and simple. SVS has been around for a
> while. It's not a new school. Presumably it engages in fund-raising.
> The moral issue is less acute in a school which is new, but for SVS to pay
> nothing to first-year staff as a matter of principle is, as you put it,
> bizarre.