My name is Jenni Austiff and I’m a G4 and Research Assistant in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a member of the bargaining committee. I facilitated Friday’s mediated bargaining session with the university.
As you may remember, during our strike, the administration proposed we engage the assistance of a federal mediator; and they said they hoped to reach a contract by the end of January. We have now had five mediated bargaining sessions, and we are nearing the end of February—but it appears that the administration has no intention of bargaining in good faith toward an agreement. Instead, the administration is hiding behind the Trump administration and working to undermine our rights. Let me explain how the administration’s positions in bargaining have changed since we ended our strike.
1. The Administration has not engaged with our call for protections against discrimination and harassment.
The administration has consistently failed to address student workers’ needs on core issues, such as protections against discrimination and harassment. In six weeks of mediation, the administration has refused to bring even a single proposal on this core demand. Moreover, they are continuing to deny these protections, even as Betsy Devos’s Department of Education is working to roll back Title IX protections and other civil rights protections on campus.
2. The Administration has reneged on previously agreed language and slowed the pace of bargaining.
Our strike won some substantive proposals from the administration, such as protections against unfair discipline and a fund to offset mental health out-of-pocket costs. (This fund was too small, but a good start to address a core demand where the administration had previously refused to make any improvements for over a year). However, over the past six weeks, the administration has slowed the pace of bargaining from once a week to once every other week. In recent bargaining sessions, the administration has brought either no proposals or regressive proposals — meaning that they reneged on previously agreed language.
In Friday’s session, we brought substantive proposals on compensation, health benefits, child care benefits, and leave provisions; but the administration only brought proposals on appointment letters (the provision that will ensure that student workers are notified about their work schedules, duties, and compensation) workload. The workload proposal was regressive: it walked back previously agreed-to language that would protect lab research assistants from supervisors making unreasonable demands on their time, such as asking them to come to lab in the middle of the night or requiring them to stay in lab for extremely long hours. We had agreed on a conceptual framework on this issue for nine months and had agreed on specific language for nearly 3 months—with language that had come from the administration itself. But yesterday, the administration rejected both the language and the principle of these workload protections.
Notably, regressive bargaining is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. However, right now, the Harvard administration is counting on the Trump administration to not enforce student workers’ labor rights.
What issues drive you to fight for a fair contract? Send me a message about workload, discrimination/harassment, or other issues that you want to see addressed in our contract to bring to the administration’s attention.
3. The Administration is threatening our union’s power and ability to represent student workers.
On top of all of this, the administration is also working to undermine our union. For instance, every other union on campus—and nearly every private-sector union in Massachusetts—has a “union security” provision that ensures all student workers contribute to our union so that we have the resources to represent all members. In contrast, the administration continues to insist on a “right-to-work” provision that would starve our union of the resources that we need to represent student workers in grievances and bargain subsequent contracts.
This is one area where we believed that the administration would change its position after months of bargaining, an overwhelming strike vote, and a month-long strike. In our mediated bargaining session earlier this month, however, the administration once again reasserted its insistence on the “right-to-work” framework that President Trump and his allies are advancing. It’s disappointing—to say the least—that the Harvard administration is still holding onto a proposal that would undermine workers’ rights on our campus, in Massachusetts, and at universities across the country.
All of these developments are alarming.
Yesterday, rather than continue to engage in “shuttle diplomacy” with the mediator,we asked to meet with the administration face-to-face and talked about their regressive proposals. Instead of recognizing their regressive bargaining, the administration told us that we should file an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the Trump National Labor Relations Board. The administration knows that to file a charge now would put all student workers at private universities at risk. They are waiting for the Trump administration to take away our legal rights.
We need to fight back. Over the course of our campaign, whenever the administration failed to bargain in good faith, we united to show them our power. We have come this far—and reached 21 tentative agreements —only through our collective organizing. Once again, we need to have serious conversations about what kind of contract we want to see, how to get there from what the administration has proposed, and what kind of actions we’re willing to take to make it happen.
Building Coalitions: Racial Justice and Immigration Rights Organizing on Campus: On Friday, Feb 28, 3:30pm in the Byerly Hall gallery space in Radcliffe Yard, the International Scholars Working Group and Civil and Human Rights Committee are hosting a panel bringing together activists from around campus from groups including Act on a Dream, the TPS Coalition, Harvard Prison Divest, Divest Harvard, and the Harvard Islamic Society to discuss how we can strengthen our collective organizing around racial justice and immigration issues. Join us!
As always, you can see the current proposals on our website and reach out to me or anyone on the bargaining committee if you have any questions. You can also send me a message about workload, discrimination/harassment, or other issues that you want to see addressed in our contract to bring to the administration’s attention.
Solidarity,
Jenni Austiff
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
