Three weeks after the release of a scathing report by the Committee on Climate Change about prolonged institutional failure to provide a safe work environment for its affiliates, in yesterday’s bargaining session the administration doubled down on their refusal to include in our contract a fair, third-party grievance procedure for discrimination and harassment complaints.
The administration made another economic proposal, but the only change they made was moving from 2% to 2.25% raises in 2019-’20 and 2020-2021. This incremental movement fails to address our concerns and speaks to the administration’s lack of commitment to a strong contract.
In addition to compensation, we discussed vacation time, holidays, intellectual property, and grievance procedure. Today showed that our persistence is not in vain: after previously rejecting our vacation proposal several times, the administration recognized for the first time that some vacation time is a benefit that student workers deserve.
Our next session is June 6th, one of the paltry three dates the administration offered over the summer. We asked for more dates for bargaining over the summer..
At their last bargaining session as they are graduating from the College, Evan made a passionate statement that included the importance of our exchanges in the bargaining room. Below is an excerpt of the words they shared at the table to close the session:
“As an undergraduate, I know that teaching conditions for my TFs are my own learning conditions. I believe that in the room there have often been zero-sum discussions that one community’s advantage might disadvantage others. This is not the case. A strong contract will support not only undergraduate and graduate student workers, but also every member of the Harvard community: undergraduates, graduates, and more. We can make progress when we are together in the room. Three dates over the entirety of the summer is not enough.”
Evan ended by demanding at least three more dates over the summer to move negotiations along.
We are still looking for student worker testimonies to support negotiations on healthcare, pay, childcare, dependent care and other economic issues. We need to make our voices heard to win an economic package that works for student workers.
