For those who were away for the academic break, welcome back! Today we had our 8th bargaining session with Harvard. While we discussed a lot of proposals today, we have some serious challenges. The administration refuses to accept the fact that we voted for a union to have shared decision making, rather than the administration making all the decisions all the time. Though they have agreed to bargain on a variety of topics which we care about, they continue to take positions which limit our ability to create the actual change we voted for in April. Here are some updates:
- Non-Discrimination and Harassment Protections.For years, our union has fought to ensure that survivors of harassment and discrimination have access to a fair complaint system, in which ultimate decisions are made by a neutral decision-maker who is neither employed by nor beholden to the university. And yet, in today’s bargaining session, the administration once again insisted that survivors bring their complaints exclusively through the internal university offices with no recourse in our contract for when those systems fail. Survivors deserve better. To join with student workers across the university who are fighting against discrimination and harassment, email harvardtimesup@gmail.com.
- Union Security. The administration wants Harvard to be a “right to work” university for student workers, which would seriously harm our ability to represent members in grievances and as other issues arise, by choking resources from the union. The university’s proposal is a complete departure from union security provisions in other union contracts on campus.
- Intellectual Property. Across the university, student workers have raised concerns about violations of their ownership rights over their work. While the administration finally agreed that student workers should not be retaliated against for raising IP concerns, they also asserted that student workers should be forced to follow exclusively internal procedures to address these issues — procedures that have failed too many student workers.
- Union Access and Rights. This provision defines our ability to communicate with our members and the democratic nature of our union. The administration wants to prevent student workers from organizing by limiting the information in the member list we receive, limiting access to spaces to talk to fellow student workers, and requiring that supervisors approve union organizing. Because our democracy is so fundamental, we refuse to accept these types of drastic changes.
- Workspace and Materials. We believe student workers should be given the materials they need to perform their work. The administrators, instead, think they alone should decide what people need, but we believe that workers know best how to do their job, and we want to help make sure all student workers are able to perform their job.
- Health and Safety. We believe we are getting closer to agreeing on acceptable provisions for health and safety, however ergonomic considerations continue to be a sticking point for the administration. We believe that student workers should have access to recourse before we get injured, not only after.
- Disability Insurance. We have asked for student workers to be included in the short term and long term disability programs that the University has in place. We look forward to a response from the administration.
We need the administration to hear us: we want our contract for the union we voted for last April. With these difficult positions the administration continues to take, it’s hard to envision us agreeing to the administration’s idea of a contract. We want a fair contract now.
Get involved with the union. The more of us that participate, organize and take on these important issues, the quicker we will gain the protections we need. We know you care about these important issues that we are still negotiating. Together, we can make Harvard even better.
We have a bargaining session scheduled for next Monday and will send out an update after.
