December 15, 2020
Volume 1
Issue 3
Contract enforcement update
Your union is working to protect you from exploitative labor practices–and we’re winning! We want to share an important new resource for your organizing: a public collection of anonymized grievance wins, along with testimonials from the affected student workers. In total, the Contract Enforcement and Education Committee (CEEC) has now handled over 100 grievance cases. This is your CEEC and your contract at work, and the number of wins just keeps growing! Share these wins and reports with your colleagues!
Read on for details on how union representatives have ensured fair hiring practices and access to Union resources. In future newsletters, we’ll share stories about ensuring fair pay, safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, and other contract wins protecting student workers!
Hiring
When a group of Teaching Fellows (TFs) were hired without any formal paperwork, they were not only deprived of fair hiring practices, but also paid half of what they had been informally told that they would be paid. Union Representatives helped these TFs file a grievance and, ultimately, ensured that they received full compensation. In another case, one graduate student worker was denied access to a teaching position prior to giving birth, a discriminatory practice that led to additional financial and mental stress during an already stressful time. With union representation, however, she was able to secure a teaching position within a week through negotiations with GSAS. Similarly, in yet another case, Harvard revoked an international student’s teaching position, which threatened their student status.The Union helped them secure a teaching position and retain their status.
Union Access
The Harvard administration tried to prevent Union speakers from informing incoming students about the importance of our work together by violating the Union contract (which ensures at least thirty minutes of Union orientation programming). After the Union filed a grievance, many departments abided by the contract and allowed Union presentations! The administration also withheld crucial information on hiring paperwork, including how to contact our Union in case of a workplace issue. After filing a grievance, corrections were sent out to all the students this omission impacted.
Feminist – Racial Justice Working Group Coalition Survey Finds Consistent Climate Demands Across Departments
Over the past few years, many departments have created reading and working groups focused on learning about and improving upon the climate surrounding gender, race, and other social justice issues in the workplace. This semester, our Feminist – Racial Justice Working Group Coalition surveyed departments across the university to gauge the goals, projects, and progress of the these working groups. In our initial review of responses, we found that across the university, departmental working groups are essentially demanding the same things. Students and community members have taken the labor upon themselves to foster a safe learning and working environment for themselves and their peers where the administration has failed.
To better understand the number and nature of working group goals and demands, our coalition is now returning to surveyed departments to further assess climate group goals and demands — right now, we are under-reporting the number and nature of these aims and would like to know the whole picture. Additionally, we will approach working groups who have already made strong demands for their input on potential intersectional feminist, anti-racist goals for our organizing and garner their input. This project is ongoing. If you are interested in supporting this work or getting involved in our social justice committees, please fill out this form and our leaders will be in touch!
One year later: What we learned since the December Strike
By Brandon Mancilla, HGSU President
On this day last December, we were out on the picket lines for Day 13 of our strike. Some of us woke up before dawn to begin 5am pickets at delivery points in freezing cold temperatures, knowing that the Teamsters and other drivers would express solidarity and not cross our picket lines. Many more joined later in the morning – at a more normal 9 or 10am – in the crammed, doughnut-abundant Phillips Brooks House basement to pick up signs, buckets-turned-drums, and megaphones to continue marching and chanting. We disrupted what, during any other year, would be an ordinary finals period. The added support of the undergraduate students we taught and faculty we worked with gave many student workers the courage to continue striking into an unexpected second, third, and fourth week. However, I believe our strike continued because we knew the importance of our action. Only a collective effort would win a contract with the crucial rights, protections, and material gains we needed. While picketing, I spoke to Harvard and other Cambridge-area workers – people considered “blue collar” and thus real as opposed to merely intellectual workers – who immediately understood why we were striking. Faculty and administrators, who have accepted their roles as “managers” and do not see the labor we put in every day to make the University’s academic operations run, were the minority. Teamsters, trades workers, and electricians, especially those who were also unionized, completely agreed that we needed an independent third-party grievance procedure and dental. They were shocked we had even “accepted” this position for so long.
What I remember most is the first bargaining session we had since the strike began. On that day, hundreds of picketers greeted our bargaining committee and the University’s representatives at 224 Mt Auburn street, filling an otherwise standard corporate space with rank-and-file resolve and joy. Ultimately, the strike lasted 29 days. We bargained – this time with a mediator- and finally made advancements towards a contract. We learned that without a strike we would have no contract. Harvard had to learn what we already knew – that we could pull it off.
Three months later, the pandemic shut down the prospects of more public expressions of solidarity. Harvard closed. Our union needed to adapt to new conditions of work and a virtual social life – if it can even be considered one. Harvard knew that it could not ignore us. They would need us to salvage the rest of the semester and depend on us for the semblance of normalcy in the fall. After a long two and a half years of bargaining, we agreed to a contract in June.
Looking back on this strike, I am amazed at how many new faces we saw out in the cold. Chemists and philosophers. Historians and economists. Law students and epidemiologists. We met each other and fought for one another. Our strike was absolutely about improving our individual issues at work through a union. The feeling of frustration and exhaustion led many of us to join HGSU in the first place. Anger alone, however, does not sustain a union or a strike. As we took the strike with us for the holiday break, we left knowing that other people we did not know decided to do what they had not done before to stand with the most exploited on campus. After years of organizing and tension, we felt like we were part of something that could win. We learned the meaning of the word solidarity in practice. In 2021, we will need to recover this feeling. The Harvard Corporation has decided to impose austerity on ALL campus workers, blaming economic uncertainty when in fact Harvard did not see any losses to their endowment during this recession and despite added pandemic costs. Worker power requires the generalization of solidarity. It feels amazing to stand up for your own rights, but once you have leapt into a strike, it feels even better to fight for and alongside your fellow student workers. Only organizing will be able to change Harvard’s course.
Harvard attempts to exclude workers from HGSU
Please note, information about this critical situation and our ongoing grievance is changing rapidly. HGSU’s Contract Enforcement and Education Committee and Communications Committee, among others, are actively working to protect PHS student workers’ rights and provide timely updates across multiple media
On Dec. 3, HGSU filed a Step 1 Grievance against the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) for attempting to strip union rights and protections from over 100 student workers in Population Health Sciences (PHS). Despite being explicitly included in our contract’s recognition clause and Harvard-HGSU voter lists, the Harvard administration is now attempting to remove student workers teaching in PHS from the bargaining unit. Even more egregious, Harvard administrators have yet to provide statements on record clarifying or justifying their decisions.
What does this mean for our union?
Beyond the serious implications for PHS student workers, Harvard’s decision to remove these student workers from the bargaining unit may also set a dangerous precedent for departments and programs across the University. To earn their stipend and fulfill program requirements, many folks accept teaching appointments for credit. This means your union membership could be at risk too. Along with your membership, any contract rights and guarantees would be stripped from you including access to benefits funds, emergency funds, pay raises, union representation, and so much more. To protect and empower all of our members, we must tackle this case head-on and aggressively. Under no circumstances will we accept unwarranted and arbitrary exclusions from our bargaining unit, especially as we move into another period of bargaining next year.
What is the next step for us?
According to our contract, union representatives will be meeting with Harvard on Wednesday, December 16 to discuss the Step 1 Grievance. Harvard then has five business days to issue a written response to the Step 1 Grievance. If we do not reach a mutually-agreed solution, the union may appeal to the Provost within ten days of the written response. Given Harvard’s non-response strategy to date, we expect to file a Step 2 Grievance at that time. We’re prepared to escalate this case until we are able to restore rights and protections to the affected student workers. Sign our petition to show your support!
Meet your new Bargaining Committee
HGSU members elected their second bargaining committee during elections during December 7-11, 2020. The Bargaining Committee will represent student workers across Harvard University.
Each newly-elected Bargaining Committee member was asked What is one thing you’d most like to accomplish as a member of the bargaining committee? and here are their responses:
“I’m most excited to negotiate a contract that we all believe in, and the upcoming bargaining survey will give everyone the chance to share the things they need to feel supported in our workplace, from improved healthcare access to a neutral third-party grievance procedure to protections from identity-based harassment and discrimination.” – Maya Anjur-Dietrich
“The one thing I would most like to achieve in the coming contract is good harassment and discrimination protections that will change the balance of power for the graduate students.” – Shani Cohen
“I’m excited to fight for a workplace free of harassment and discrimination, and for equitable hourly wages for student workers.” – Vicki Dzindzichashvili
“If I accomplish one thing as a BC member, I’d want it to be to bring members to the bargaining table in open bargaining sessions, so they can really see for themselves what we are up against and bring their voices directly to Harvard administrators” – Aparna Gopalan
“As a member of the bargaining committee, I think it’s important to organize and mobilize—I want to identify key issues for which we can rally and fight.” – Koby Ljunggren
“I want to win a strong second contract that meaningfully improves protections against discrimination and harassment.” – Cory McCartan
“The one thing I’d most like to accomplish is a third-party grievance procedure that affirms the identities of all members of our unit by ensuring that people of color, trans and queer people, folks living with disabilities, and all marginalized folks living at the intersections of these and other identities have a way to hold Harvard and all of its actors accountable to their safety and longevity.” – Ericka Sanchez
“I’m most looking forward to building a strong, cohesive Union that helps establish union culture at Harvard for years to come.” – Ash Tomaszewski
