TLDR: Friday we saw some very positive movement from Admin, especially on Workloads. However, Admin is still not budging on some core issues for teaching faculty, and they also completely refused to engage with us about their decision to keep our salaries frozen. Finally, we proposed counters for better severance rules; reimbursement of visa costs; and leave provisions that better cover long-term sickness and victims of abuse.

While bargaining remains our most direct tool for creating a contract, your testimonies and engagement are our most powerful (Yes, we mean you!!). During the next session on Wednesday 7/22 at 1:00 pm, we will counter on wages. We’re looking for workers who can testify how insufficient wages and especially the lack of cost-of-living adjustments has affected them. Contact us if you want to testify (in-person or on zoom). Observe the session, and register here if you haven’t already.

If you want to read all versions of our contract articles, go here

The good:

The Corporation side returned a package of counters that contains significant wins for us:

  • Admin has dropped its proposal for tying teaching faculty promotion to arbitrary enrollment minimums! This means you cannot be fired if there is one student too few in your class. Thank you to all workers who gave BC feedback about this.
  • Admin agreed to a stricter definition of a 35h work week (averaged over appointments period) for non-teaching employees, helping to protect our unit from overwork.
  • Admin agreed you can not be retaliated against for refusing extra duties outside of your job description.
  • Admin agreed that researchers who teach will receive a secondary appointment with proper compensation.
  • If your spring class is canceled, you keep your pay and don’t have to teach it during the next academic year. Sadly they want to exclude TAs from this.

All of these are contingent on the union accepting, as-is, a package of 4 articles (Workload, Titles and Classification, Academic Promotion and Professional Standing). Considering the issues these still contain, we cannot accept this package yet, but we are closer now than we ever were before!

The bad:

  • Admin has largely rejected our model of 5 lecturer tracks that take into account field specificities.
  • Admin still claims they can unilaterally eliminate or modify job titles without any recourse.
  • In the context of support for professional development, Admin still refuses that research can be a legitimate part of a teacher’s work.

The very bad:

We confronted Admin about their arbitrary decision to not give our members a raise for another year. They refused to engage, arguing that past years’ raises, which most of us got every summer, did not amount to status quo. When we told them we are filing a ULP (labor lawsuit), they interjected “Add it to the pile!” showing their disdain for due process and for our workers’ concerns.

If you are confused how Admin can be so reasonable on workloads and yet act so petulantly on raises, so are we! Our gameplan remains unchanged in the face of this: be steadfast, fight, and win a fair contract!

Our Counters

HAW bargaining page and full list of articles.

  • In Severance we are close to agreeing with Admin, but we’re still seeking to ensure the full benefit for some edge cases.
  • In Visa Processing Cost we reasserted that Harvard should cover SEVIS fees and more importantly the cost of travel for the purpose of visa renewal.
  • In Paid Leave we want to get 26 weeks of 100% paid leave for medical reasons for all workers, which is currently the case for professional staff and post-docs but not other members of our unit. We are also asking Harvard to provide 100% paid leave to victims of abuse, one step further than what’s required by MA law, and increased paid parental leave.

The Bargaining Committee always needs your feedback, email us hawuawbc@gmail.com if you want to discuss any of this.

Our SAV is still open, vote and make your colleagues vote.

The Summer or Bargaining is on! Four sessions left, everyone should try to attend at least once, see our Summer of Bargaining email or go here.

In solidarity,

HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee