We’re Sitting-in for a #ContractNow
We are sitting-in today because Harvard has so far refused to extend meaningful protections against harassment and discrimination or offer substantial economic improvements for our first union contract. We can’t wait any longer.
More than one year ago, we went to the polls to vote #UnionYes to secure fair pay, job security, comprehensive and affordable healthcare, protections against discrimination and harassment, protections for international student workers, and benefits to address rising costs of living. On May 1, 2018, the National Labor Relations Board certified our union, Harvard Graduate Students Union — United Auto Workers, as the sole representative of student workers on this campus. That same day, the Harvard administration agreed to bargain in good faith with our union. We were excited, but we expected that there would be challenges ahead.
What we did not expect was that the administration would try to carve out protections for discrimination and harassment that other graduate student unions have in their contracts from our grievance procedure, making them effectively unenforceable. Harvard has not made any move to compromise in over 6 months, despite the clear failures of internal processes, including the administration’s failure to address Jorge Dominguez’s decades-long harassment of students. This despite our Time’s Up rally, where over 350 called out for better protections; despite support from over 50 campus groups, including the GSAS Graduate Student Council and the Undergraduate Council; and despite the unity of community support for HGSU-UAW’s position, including from Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, the Cambridge City Council, Greater Boston Labor Council, MetroBTC, and more. We showed the administration what a united campus and community looks like, and they looked away. We delivered a petition signed by over 2000 student workers that called for a fair #ContractNow. Harvard has not acted.
What we did not expect was the administration to offer the lowest raises in a decade, despite the fact that our rent increases are already higher than our annual pay increase. The administration has proposed funds for childcare, dependent care, and dental care so low that, for a bargaining unit of over 4,000 student workers, they would only cover a total of 14 children and 17 adult dependents, and $30 discounts on dental care, despite the fact that Massachusetts is the second most expensive state in the US for childcare and peer institutions (e.g. Columbia University) offer dependent and dental care at no cost to their graduate workers.
We are here today because the Harvard administration’s response fails to meet the urgency of the issues that undergraduate and graduate student workers face on campus. Some of us are from the Government department, where we have been waiting for 422 days for a Title IX investigation into decades of harassment by Jorge Dominguez and repeated institutional failures to address this harassment. We won’t wait any longer for a #NoCarveOut grievance procedure to provide protections from harassment and discrimination. Some of us are here to represent student parents; some of us are here because we need workload protections. Some of us are here to advocate for the rights of international students who face immense precarity in speaking up because of their visa status. Some of us are here because we are paid minimum wage at the wealthiest university in the world, in addition to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition. Our employer advertises our ‘pro bono’ work, our scholarship, and our teaching. It builds its reputation off our hard work and dedication. But it fails to compensate us fairly for it and treat us with respect and dignity in the workplace.
The academic semester is ending in the next two weeks. We want to return to campus ready to ratify our first union contract — a contract that gives us equitable pay, job security, protections from harassment and discrimination, assistance for international student workers, adequate healthcare, and a campus that is family-friendly. We are in University Hall today because we are no longer willing to wait.
It is past time the Harvard administration started showing up to work to support its student-workers. We, the undersigned organizers of HGSU-UAW, did not withhold our work today. But we will organize towards a strike authorization vote in the fall should the administration fail to take our concerns and democratic priorities seriously in negotiating a contract that improves the lives and working conditions of thousands of student workers. Time’s up.
A.B.K., A.F., A.G., A.L., A.S., B.B., B.D.C., C.M., C.W., D.D., D.E., D.J., E.A., E.B., E.C.M., E.L., F.O., G.K., G.S., H.L.Z., H.O., J.C., J.K., K.J., L.H., L.X., M.O., M.R., M.V., O.B., P.M, P.S., R.M., R.S.-A., S.D., S.F., S.G., S.H., S.S., V.K.-Y., Z.G.
