June 2021
Volume 1
Issue 9
Read previous issues
Bargaining heats up as contract expiration looms
Since last month, we have scheduled three additional bargaining sessions. The remaining bargaining sessions for June now are: June 22 from 3 – 5pm, June 24 from 9-11:30am, June 28 from 11am – 1pm, and June 30 from 2 – 4pm. RSVP to observe these sessions here.
Given the looming expiration of the first contract on June 30, the University is yielding to some of our demands on appointment letters (Article 3), appointment security (Article 4), but they remain opposed to many demands on health and safety (Article 10), training (Article 11), and especially economic issues (Articles 21 – 24, 26, 28, 29). They object to the inclusion of racial justice and mental health initiatives in the contract since the University has working groups and committees working on similar issues. They also object to the Union’s proposed role in cooperatively determining the content of training sessions for student workers, faculty, and staff. Lastly, the University’s initial economic proposal—presented at last Tuesday’s bargaining session, just 23 days before our contract expires—outlined a zero percent raise for salaried student workers next year and a bonus that will only apply to a small set of these student workers. For hourly student workers, the University fell short of the Union raise proposal by $5 per hour next year. Needless to say, this initial offer is incredibly disappointing—there is no time to waste on incremental nothingburger proposals if we truly want to settle a second contract by the deadline. The University rejected and did not engage with a number of other economic proposals including the expansion of the definition of family for insurance and leave, extension of statewide family and medical leave policies to student workers, or premium coverage for dental insurance.
However, all was not lost. After years of organizing at the School of Public Health, the University agreed with the Union proposal to eliminate pay disparities for workers teaching in HSPH. We expected this to be a bigger fight at the table, and it was energizing to see this concession in their first counterproposal. Additionally, the University is exploring a second dental plan that will be about half the cost with preventative care coverage. These moves are promising, and yet some important issues remain: fair compensation on par with peer institutions, real recourse for power and identity-based harassment and discrimination, comprehensive mental health and dental coverage, and a union shop to secure the longevity of our Union. To improve access to bargaining information, the HGSU Bargaining Committee launched a proposal tracker webpage. Here, you can follow the pace of bargaining, read about our wins, and track progress on the core issues.
Finally, with the help of the HGSU Communications team, two social media campaigns were launched for June. Our contract expiration countdown provides a daily reminder on social media that the clock is ticking—there is no time to waste. The #ourcontract2021 campaign provides a weekly summary of the major demands left on the table. For the first week, we covered compensation. In the second week, we covered real recourse. The third week covered mental health and dental care. The fourth week will cover the importance of a union shop. Spread the word! Talk to friends, colleagues, incoming students. Get the word out and build the energy we need to secure the contract we deserve.
Harvard job posting website going live this week
Per Article 5 of our contract ratified in June 2020, the University was required to create a job posting board for open HGSU union positions by June 30, 2021. According to the university, that website is going live this week! Once live, student workers can use the CARAT system, and should be able to filter view just HGSU positions. TF positions from Central Application for Teaching Sections (CATS) will automatically show up on CARAT, and student workers can easily apply through CARAT or an automatic redirect to another system for application.
Let’s get together this summer!
You – and your colleagues – are HGSU! So what do you want to see your union doing this summer? Want to hang out with everyone (safely) in person? Want to stay on Zoom while you’re away from Cambridge this summer? Let your union organizers know and get involved by completing this survey!
Solidarity Updates
APALA Convention
The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), an affiliate group under the AFL-CIO, is holding their biennial convention via Zoom this August 5-8. Registration and membership forms are available at http://www.apalaconvention.org/
The APALA convention brings workers and allies together for powerful plenaries, APALA business, and an opportunity for attendees to take collective action. This convening links generations of organizers who are working to advance worker justice and continues the groundwork laid by decades of training programs, our political and civic engagement programs, and our series of successful immigration campaigns. APALA members in good standing, community allies, student activists and any other interested organizations can attend the convention.
The convention also provides an opportunity for UAW members to meet and connect with each other, in addition to meeting other AAPI union members and activists.
MA Medicare for All
The UAW MA (CAP) is a member of the Mass-Care coalition. Mass-Care sponsors the Massachusetts Medicare for All act (House docket H. 1267 and Senate bill S. 766), which would establish a single payer health care system providing comprehensive health care for all residents of Massachusetts. Call your legislator today and ask them to support Medicare for All in Massachusetts! You can find your legislator here.
Gig Economy Fight
The UAW has joined the Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights, a growing alliance of labor, civil rights, immigrant, environmental justice, and other public interest groups who oppose the campaign led by Big Gig companies (Uber, Lyft, Doordash) to exclude hundreds of thousands of workers from workplace rights and protections by significantly narrowing who is an “employee” under Massachusetts Law.
Current Massachusetts law classifies any individual “performing any service” as an “employee.” Under law, “employees” are entitled to numerous rights and protections including minimum wage, paid sick time, and paid family leave, unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation, the right to join a union, and protections against sexual harassment and racial discrimination at work. In recent years, Massachusetts has strengthened the rights of workers, adding paid sick time, annually increasing the minimum wage (now $13.50) to reach $15 per hour, and, most recently, expanding paid family and medical leave to all. These changes have been particularly critical for low-wage workers, raising standards of work across our state.
Attorney General Healey is currently suing Uber and Lyft for illegally denying these rights to their employees by classifying them as “independent contractors.” Rather than complying with current, longstanding state law, these Big Gig companies have proposed rewriting it. In March, Rep. Cusak introduced the Uber/Lyft-backed bill HB 1234 to the Masscahusetts legislature. This bill would exclude hundreds of thousands of workers from the rights and protections by significantly narrowing who is an “employee” under Massachusetts law (the so-called ABC Test, MGL Ch. 149, § 148B). Specifically, this bill would exclude their workers entirely, using language stating that, for “all purposes,” “an app-based driver is an independent contractor and not an employee.” This campaign to enact HB 1234 mirrors the one these Big Gig companies led in California, which led to the passing of Proposition 22, and are using tactics from in other states as well.
The Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights is building their campaign in opposition to HB 1234 to protect Massachusetts law from a similar Big Gig-backed effort. Massachusetts’ pro-worker state law is gaining notice nationally. The Biden-Harris campaign backed a national employee test based on our state law to enhance federal protections for workers. The same language was included in the PRO Act, a bill to revitalize labor which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in February. Locally, AG Healey and her Fair Labor Division won a significant victory in court on March 25, in their lawsuit against Uber’s and Lyft’s classification of workers as independent contractors. Now is the time to protect and build on the law that we have, not to allow Big Gig to rewrite it to their benefit and to deny rights and protections to workers.
The devastating and far-reaching impacts of Proposition 22 in California are instructive for anticipating what might happen if HB 1234 were enacted in Massachusetts. First, workers in California’s gig economy are making less money and have even less autonomy. Second, companies in California are eliminating traditional employees and replacing them with independent contractors. Union supermarket workers were fired and replaced with app-based drivers. An early investor in Uber wrote that Proposition 22 made it possible to eliminate worker rights and protections in fields like “nursing, executive assistance, tutoring, programming, restaurant work and design.” And, third, Big Gig is pushing their agenda in states across the country, starting with Massachusetts. Join us Tuesday, June 22 from 10-12pm in front of the Massachusetts State House to publicly launch the Coalition’s campaign to protect workers’ rights.
Labor Links
At Harvard and around Boston
- St Vincent Nurses Strike: 800 nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester remain on strike after 14 weeks and held a rally with support from legislators and unions this past Saturday. The nurses, committed to bargaining for the common good, are demanding that owner Tenet Healthcare Corporation put patients over profits and put in place safe staffing levels. The Hospital recently posted over 100 positions for permanent replacement. Support striking nurses by contributing to their strike fund.
- Steelworkers on strike in New Bedford: Across the country, steelworkers at nine plants of Allegheny Technologies, Inc., including those at New Bedford, MA, have been on strike for 11 weeks.
- Lab workers at McLean Hospital win a union: After an NLRB election victory, 145 Research and Laboratory Assistants at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA have won a union with AFSCME Council 93.
- Coffee shop workers at Pavement win voluntary recognition for their unionization effort from management: On June 2, ownership at Pavement Coffeehouse, a chain with ~80 workers across eight locations around Boston, unexpectedly and almost immediately agreed to voluntarily recognize their unionization with New England Joint Board UNITE HERE through a card check election. If successful, this would be the first unionized coffee shop in Massachusetts.
Around the country
- Department of Labor limits long-awaited mandatory COVID-19 workplace safety rules to healthcare industry: After months of delay, the DOL released new mandatory workplace safety rules on Thursday, June 10 requiring only healthcare employers—and not those in transit, meatpacking, hospitality, and other industries whose workers have been hit hard by the pandemic—to provide masks, physical barriers, proper ventilation, and social distancing to their workers.
- Union elections at Rutgers University AAUP-AFT: Rutgers Postdoctoral Associates Union AAUP-AFT is organizing for a contract renewal, and are asking for support by signing their petition.
- UC student researchers file for union recognition: The over 17,000 Student Researchers at the University of California overwhelmingly chose to form a union and filed for union recognition on May 24. This union will allow early-career scientists in the UC system and its associated labs to benefit from collective representation, joining 19,000 of their graduate instructor colleagues and 11,000 postdocs.
- NYCLU workers win voluntary recognition: Workers at ACLU of New York (NYCLU) have joined UAW Local 2320 NOLSW and won voluntary recognition of their union on June 11, 2021.
- Volvo workers with UAW Local 2069 vote down tentative agreement again, are back on strike: On June 6, 2,900 auto workers at Volvo’s truck plant in Virginia overwhelming (90%) voted down for the second time a concessionary contract that would increase health care costs and maintain a two-tier wage system, among other concerns, and resumed their strike.
- In Puerto Rico, 20 unions threaten to strike over energy privatization: 20 unions representing thousands of workers across industries in Puerto Rico have threatened to strike if the 15-year contract privatizing the island’s public power utilities with private consortium LUMA Energy is not rescinded. This contract would displace thousands of workers and increase electric rates.
- UAW ex-President Jones sentenced & UAW-wide referendum on democratic elections: On June 10, UAW ex-President Gary Jones was sentenced to 28 months in prison for embezzlement, in connection to years of corruption at the highest levels of UAW. There will be a UAW-wide referendum this fall on the election of top UAW international officers. HGSU membership has endorsed and is organizing in support of One Member, One Vote.
Around the world
- Strikes in Colombia: Colombia is now in its seventh week of national strikes that began on April 28 in protest against regressive tax reform and have persisted despite deadly retaliatory repression by the Colombian state. Strikers have already achieved several major goals (withdrawal of legislation taxing basic necessities, resignation of members of the national government, and more) and yet more needed changes remain.
- Strikes in Myanmar: Workers in Myanmar have continued to strike in protest of a military coup over 100 days ago, with high participation from workers in the public and private sector, despite an increasingly deadly government crackdown and dire economic consequences.
