Nocarveout

Protected: #NoCarveOut

Harvard student workers are saying #TimesUp to sexual harassment and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, national origin, and other marginalized identities. Too often, the system we have fails survivors and students of color experiencing unfair treatment and abuse. Everyone deserves an equitable, impartial process that delivers justice, not inaction and delays.

What’s #NoCarveOut? The administration has proposed carving potential protections for harassment and discrimination out of student workers’ first union contract. We reject this proposal. We stand united to demand the administration agree to a fair and neutral grievance procedure for harassment and discrimination in this historic contract for HGSU-UAW. Our union is calling for a #NoCarveOut in our first collective bargaining agreement with Harvard University.

Student workers across campus have united around this issue since the beginning of our campaign. Importantly, on March 13 over 300 student workers and community supporters gathered at the Science Center Plaza to stand up for our civil rights: a #NoCarveOut for protections from harassment and discrimination. All of us then marched and delivered President Bacow our petition for a contract now—a petition containing thousands of signatures from student-workers as well as statements in support from over 60 groups at Harvard and dozens of organizations in the community. We showed Harvard what a united campus looks like. On December 3, we went on strike for 29 days for a #NoCarveOut grievance procedure amongst other core demands.You can read about our strike here.

Testimonials

Hear from survivors about how our union grievance procedure can bring accountability to our campus.

Resources

We encourage all survivors of discrimination and harassment to reach out. You don’t need to be alone. Visit our resources page to read about what we can do to help.

A Tale of Two Systems

This comparative chart shows how our union grievance procedure is different than the existing Title IX/Office of Dispute Resolution process. Crucially, our union grievance procedure creates an avenue of recourse for harassment and discrimination claims that are not sex or gender-based or sexual in nature and as such do not fall under the purview of the Title IX office at the university.

Frequently Asked Questions

A. There are many differences! They are summarized in a flowchart comparing the two processes, “A Tale of Two Systems”. A neutral third-party grievance procedure is an integral part of any union contract, and we are specifically fighting for it to include discrimination and sexual harassment. Why?
Below is a table summarizing some of the major differences between Title IX/ODR procedures, and the neutral third-party grievance procedure that is an integral part of any union contract.
  Harvard Title IX Office and Office for Dispute Resolution (ODR) A neutral third-party
grievance procedure
Formal investigations are adjudicated by A university-appointed panel of faculty and administrators An independent third-party
arbitrator, whose fee is
split 50-50 between the
university and the union
Complainants can first pursue informal resolution Yes Yes, with assistance of union rep if desired
Complaints have access to interim measures such as change in work station Yes Yes
Handles cases of sexual harassment and assault and gender-based
discrimination		 Yes Yes
Handles cases of non-gender-based discrimination, such as race-based or disability-based discrimination Not specified or necessarily trained to do so Yes
Handles cases of non-identity based discrimination, including bullying and intimidation Not specified or necessarily trained to do so Yes
Who has recourse All members of the
Harvard community, including anyone who has a complaint against a Harvard affiliate.		 All student workers

Yes! As discussed in this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, an
international student worker at the University of Connecticut used a grievance procedure in the contract of GEU-UAW Local 6950 to seek recourse for sexual harassment after the UConn Title IX process had ruled against her case. As a result of independent arbitration, she was able to stay in the country and finish her graduate studies. We believe that a grievance procedure in our contract would provide Harvard student workers with the same protections.

The administration is not opposed to a neutral grievance procedure, per se—what they have proposed at the table is a proposal where discrimination and harassment are carved out from this procedure. In their proposal, student workers cannot seek recourse with a grievance procedure for issues of non-discrimination, for example gender-based and sexual harassment and discrimination! In fact, in their proposal student workers are able to apply this procedure to every other article in our contract, for example contract violations relating to compensation, workload, safety, healthcare, childcare, training, and appointment notifications. However, the omission of non-discrimination clauses from application of the grievance procedure would leave our student workers (and the broader university community) unprotected, and would demonstrate to harassers that their unlawful actions can continue with impunity.

In other union contracts we have examined, it is normal for grievance procedures to cover all provisions in a contract. However, the administration is arguing for a carve-out for sexual harassment and discrimination protections. This is not normal, and we believe it is unjustifiable to single out the most vulnerable members of our community to be excluded from protections we’re fighting to provide to all student workers. We demand #NoCarveOut.

Attend and tell your friends to attend the #TimesUpHarvard rally on March 13 at 12pm in front of the John Harvard Statue! Please RSVP for updates and to commit to telling Harvard that #TimesUp and we demand #NoCarveOut!

Also, please get in touch with us! We bring in members or their statements to the room to talk about institutional failings on this issue. You can write a social media post. You can attend our next action. You can organize with our Time’s Up Committee. Above all, spread the word in your communities!

Typically, the union and the university would each conduct separate investigations. There is nothing in our proposal that prevents the university from using their established fact-finding processes to bring the facts to an arbitration hearing. The union’s investigation procedure, again, serves to empower the survivor with more control over the investigation by making sure their case is represented fairly.

You may hear claims:Our grievance procedure would would “skip over” the investigatory process for addressing harassment and discrimination complaints.
Students would also retain the right to pursue other existing recourse mechanisms, such as filing a complaint with state or federal agencies.
At every step of the way, survivors can choose to be represented by a union steward or trained representative. This right applies both to our grievance procedure and Office of Dispute Resolution investigations. Empowered with union advocacy, survivors cannot be discouraged from reporting as they are under the current system.
An alleged perpetrator would be brought into an arbitration hearing only if the university administration chose to defend them and bring them to the hearing. However, even if this were the case, a survivor, backed by the union steward or representative (a trained advocate), could request to not meet face-to-face with the alleged perpetrator. Arbitrators in such union grievance proceedings respect these requests, as their goal is to ensure a safe and fair process for all involved. The university administration claims to be concerned about survivors not being subject to cross-examination; however, it would be the administration’s decision (i) to defend the perpetrator, and (ii) whether to cross-examine the survivor against their will.
An alleged perpetrator would be brought into an arbitration hearing only if the university administration chose to defend them and bring them to the hearing. However, even if this were the case, a survivor, backed by the union steward or representative (a trained advocate), could request to not meet face-to-face with the alleged perpetrator. Arbitrators in such union grievance proceedings respect these requests, as their goal is to ensure a safe and fair process for all involved. The university administration claims to be concerned about survivors not being subject to cross-examination; however, it would be the administration’s decision (i) to defend the perpetrator, and (ii) whether to cross-examine the survivor against their will.
In contrast with a union grievance procedure, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s new proposed Title IX regulations—which Harvard University would be obligated to follow—would mandate live hearings and cross-examination.
Moreover, while the university has proposed “working groups” for these other forms of discrimination and bullying, it has set no clear deadline of creating an avenue of recourse and provided no guarantee that these avenues of recourse won’t suffer from the problems that their processes to address Title IX complaints have. (Consult “A Tale of Two Systems” for more details!)
Our union contract will provide protections from sexual harassment and discrimination, and if a student worker is subjected to any of it, that is a violation of our contract. What a third-party arbitration process does is to lay down the facts and enables a neutral party to make a decision on the merits and judge whether a student worker’s rights were violated under the contract. If harassment and discrimination is found to have occurred, an arbitrator will provide remedies to remove the student worker from the situation. The administration is objecting to the union’s proposal for a third party neutral arbitrator, not because it cares about protecting the survivor, but because the administration does not want a third party making a finding of discrimination or harassment. By arguing that our grievance procedure cannot result in sanctions, the administration is saying that it may decide not to abide by recommendations made by a neutral fact-finder, in effect continuing to let perpetrators go unpunished. This is within their power, but they will not be able to continue to sweep harassment and discrimination under the rug.
Our election vote, our bargaining surveys, our petition, and the Time’s Up rally have articulated the message of our united campus loud and clear: the status quo is a failure. We need protections from harassment and discrimination now.

Members Agree: We want strong protections from harassment and discrimination

We voted #UnionYES for a more equitable Harvard and we’re saying #NoCarveout for a #contractNOW. We’re not going to let harassment and discrimination protections be carved out from our contract. Here are some bargaining survey data that show support for these protections.

In Press: Hear from members how our union grievance procedure will protect survivors.

Student Workers Need a Contract Now Because #TimesUp
A Tale of Two Arbitrations
#NoCarveOut in our #ContractNow Unites Community and Campus: Over 60 student groups and dozens of organizations across Massachusetts backs our demand for discrimination and harassment protections.

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