Yesterday, a delegation of HGSU-UAW members attended our second of three bargaining sessions over the summer to communicate growing dissatisfaction with Harvard’s approach to our negotiations. These organizers delivered an open letter signed by over 300 students telling the administration:
“We, the undersigned members of departments across Harvard University, commit to organizing to authorize our bargaining committee to call a strike if Harvard administration does not allow a reasonable path forward for negotiation.” You can read the open letter here.
| If you are interested in getting more involved, reply to this email. If you have questions, contact your department leaders, union staff, or come to Union office hours this week to ask about the open letter and our plan to win a fair contract:This Thursday, 7/18, @ 11am-2pm on both campuses:New Research Building Cafe @ LongwoodWilliam James Hall Room 501 @ Cambridge | “I was shocked by how quick the administration was to dismiss the Bargaining Committee’s proposals around protections for harassment and discrimination. I didn’t realize how much research and preparation goes into planning the proposals the BC brings to every session, and it seems like the University isn’t really listening to their arguments. It was evident that the BC is trying to keep things moving as quickly and efficiently as they can through the pile of contract articles that are being negotiated over, but the administration seems to share none of their sense of urgency.”– Matthew R. Volpe, Chemistry and Chemical Biology |
Yesterday, we discussed our proposals on Nondiscrimination and Harassment; International Student Worker Rights; Intellectual Property Rights; Paid Leaves; Grievance and Arbitration; Health Benefits; Discipline and Discharge; Holidays, Vacation and Personal Days; Travel; Management Rights; and Past Practices.
As we have traded proposals back and forth, the University’s rigid opposition to a number of core issues continues to prevent meaningful progress in our negotiations The administration still refuses to address shortcomings in the student health plan, including the costs of mental health care and availability of specialists. The administration has offered a total of $50,000 to subsidize the cost of dental insurance, which if applied evenly across all members of the unit, would equal approximately $12.50 of the $558 annual cost of dental insurance.
The administration also has “nothing more to say” about carving out sexual harassment protections from a neutral, third-party grievance procedure. These positions are repeated session after session with incremental movements. Relatedly, yesterday the University argued that the bargaining committee is being unreasonable because it has not proposed a counter to their article prohibiting strikes during the lifetime of a contract. While many contracts do have provisions like this, they are often made as part of a trade for a grievance procedure. As such, we are unwilling to give up our right to strike when the University has not agreed to a fair grievance process for student workers who are harassed or discriminated against.
Some other notable updates on the proposals are:
- Nondiscrimination and Harassment: While the key issue in this proposal remains unaddressed, we are also not seeing enough movement on provisions that are standard in other higher ed contracts such as guarantee of gender-neutral bathrooms, working with the Union to design trainings, and administering regular equity surveys. Yesterday, we discussed at length another important aspect of this proposal: pay for climate and equity work to reduce “invisible labor”—unpaid but essential work to make workplaces more equitable—at the University. The University maintains that committee work can at most be accounted for by release time from other job duties and that students should be motivated to take on these duties without pay. We know that release time would not adequately address the problem of invisible labor and the toll this work takes on those who perform it.
- International Student Rights:We have made substantial progress on protections for international student workers, notably creating avenues for student workers who are stuck outside of the country due to visa issues to continued paid work, as well as paid leave to address visa renewal issues while in the country. Outstanding disagreements include financial support for visa renewal trips to U.S. Embassy locations, coverage of DACA, TPS, and SEVIS fees, and a commitment to work on English as a Second Language programs. Nonetheless, we believe we are very close on this article.
- Intellectual Property Rights: We have agreed on retaliation protections, establishment of clear University procedures to address disputes, and communication of plain-language summaries. We believe we have given the University a proposal they can sign at this time.
- Holidays, Vacation, and Personal Days: The administration has agreed in principle to guaranteed vacations for some student workers, and we are working to ensure that as many student workers as possible can have reasonable time off. While we have disagreements about number of days off, we are working towards a compromise that works for students and for the administration.
- Health Benefits: We continue to propose substantive changes to the terms of the healthcare plan to address the needs of our members, which calls for more mental health and specialist coverage. The administration has still refused to bargain over the terms of the plan itself. While we have pushed for full coverage of healthcare, dental, vision, and dependent care for as many student workers as possible, the administration has only responded with small pools of money for dental and dependent care. This money would only be enough to reduce each student worker’s dental costs by less than $12.50 per year, and cover insurance premiums for 21 workers with a spouse and child. This is not enough, and we will continue to push for better coverage.
- Paid Family and Medical Leaves: Student workers should have a basic right to paid leave in the case of being sick, needing medical treatment, starting a family, caring for an ill family member, and for a range of other reasons. In yesterday’s session, we once again proposed twelve weeks of fully-paid leave; but the Harvard administration once again rejected our paid leave proposal, insisting that all leaves must be unpaid.
- Travel:If a student worker is required to travel for their employment (for example, for a training or to present at a conference), they should have regular expenses paid upfront, rather than fronting the costs and waiting for an unknown time to get a reimbursement. We are close to an agreement where all such expenses are prepaid.
- Management Rights:Management rights clauses are common in many union contracts, and we provided a response on management rights.
- Discipline & Discharge:Importantly, the administration has long agreed on “just cause” dismissal, which is a common standard of protection for workers. However, the administration is refusing to ensure that our union has the information needed to adequately represent students when they are being disciplined.
- Grievance and Arbitration: While we have reached quite a bit of agreement about the process of filing a grievance, we have an important disagreement about the arbitration stage. We are advocating for a panel of arbitrators, a common practice that historically has shown to have faster scheduling and a more expedient path to resolution than typical arbitration associations. This is important for making the grievance procedure as smooth and efficient as possible. The Harvard administration’s insistence on carving out discrimination and harassment claims also remains a crucial hangup here.
- Past Practices: The administration wants to be able to unilaterally change anything that is not explicitly spelled out in our contract. Instead we have proposed that any changes to established practices would need to be negotiated over.
