I am Shani Cohen, a G3 in the economics department and a member of our bargaining committee!
Yesterday, we met Harvard for another bargaining session in which they countered all of the open articles in the contract in another package proposal. With two more bargaining sessions to go until the contract expires (again!), we hoped to see much more progress at this point. In yesterday’s proposal we saw no movement on real recourse, health & dental care, agency shop, or hourly workers’ compensation.
While we are making progress, we still have differences on some of the big issues. Emails you may have received about stipend pay do not indicate that an agreement has been reached.
Harvard proposed a 2% pay increase for salaried workers in the first year (we proposed 6%), while still offering 2.5% in the following two years (countering our proposal of 6% and 3% respectively). While 2% is an improvement from the 0% Harvard insisted on until recently, we made it clear that with the cost of living in Boston increasing by 4.3% over the past year, a 2% raise—which is in real terms a pay cut—is not something our members will accept. Harvard has not moved from their previous proposal on hourly workers wages.
Other than that, Harvard added $50,000 across all funds and increased the size of the (new!) international student worker fund to $30,000.
The administration continues to make small changes on economic issues while expecting us to sell out the rights of our colleagues. We’ve heard you: we deserve more, and we’ll fight for it.
The Strike Authorization Vote (SAV) will open on September 13th. All HGSU members are eligible to vote – so if you’re not a member, join now. Unless you are willing to accept Harvard’s current proposal, it’s time for you to get active. Organizing meetings happen every Monday at 7pm at this link, and we have organizers in every department working to make this campaign successful. Reach out to your steward or to hgsu.general@gmail.com to figure out how to get more involved in department organizing.
In solidarity,
Shani
