The administration brought five responses to our proposals and two brand-new proposals, and they rejected four of our proposals altogether.
Those rejected articles are: Academic Freedom, Artificial Intelligence, Departmental Representation, and Protecting Disciplinary Vitality. At a time when academic freedom is under unprecedented assault, the administration won’t even talk to us about it, because, they say, Harvard has no official definition of academic freedom and cannot commit to one in a contract. At a time when AI promises to transform every field in academia and beyond, Harvard is throwing up its hands and refusing to bargain with us over how AI will impact our work. As austerity measures proliferate and major decisions are being made about funding and restructuring with Harvard, the administration refuses to engage with articles that would prevent departments and programs from being eliminated and that would give us a seat at the table in our home departments. On all of these fronts, we will not take “no” for an answer.
We presented counter-proposals on: Intellectual Property Rights, Principal Investigator Rights, Evaluations, Union Access and Rights, and Access to Services and Workspace.
The administration gave us counters of their own which included Flexwork, Access Needs, Workload, Health and Safety, as well as a new proposal about Layoffs. We are very concerned by the administration’s counter-proposal on Union Security, which represents a fundamental threat to our ability to maintain a strong union—the administration’s counter-proposal would drastically weaken our union by depriving us of the right to collect union dues from all bargaining unit members. This would be devastating to our capacity to administer the contract effectively and to maintain our organizing and our power moving forward.
There’s big news on job security and time caps–the administration’s counter-proposal on Appointments and Reappointments, would end the time caps for both Lecturers and Preceptors, replacing them with an up-or-out promotion ladder. I have to say, given how many years we have been fighting to change this policy, reaching this point is a huge deal. At the same time, this thing ain’t over—the administration’s proposal includes some “poison pills” that make their current offer unacceptable. There are several loopholes that would allow a de facto time cap to persist, and a blanket refusal of “just cause” protections on reappointments, allowing the administration to decide not to reappoint any teacher or researcher for any reason–or for no reason at all. Their proposal would also increase workloads, set minimum enrollments (50 students per year for Lecturers), require Lecturers and Preceptors to reapply for their own jobs, and would leave time caps in place for Teaching Assistants. So, while there is a big crack in the foundation—something we’ve accomplished by building our own power—we still have to push much harder to win the security and stability we deserve.
HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee Member HAW-UAW (FAS/HMS/HDS)