TL;DR: Harvard Academic Workers comes prepared with the rest of its econ package, the Corporation with nothing in hand but questions and complaints about us having the audacity to seek fair pay and benefits after years of stagnant wages.
Last week, the bargaining committee proposed the first nine articles of our new, streamlined economic package in an effort to make reasonable movements while emphasizing our core needs as workers. Today, we presented the five remaining articles of Compensation, Retiree Benefits, Family Support, Health Benefits, and Professional Development. Harvard’s bargaining team presented no proposals this session.
To sum it up:
- We proposed an initial raise of 15% in salaries to make up for years of stagnation and lost wages, and an annual 4% COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustment) to account for inflation in the years ahead.
- For Family Support, we reiterated our stance that we should receive financial assistance with childcare equivalent to what is available to tenure-track faculty, but accepted ladder faculty priority in accessing Harvard childcare centers.
- In response to Admin’s proposal of $1000 in annual professional development funds for only teachers, we countered with a minimum of $2000 for researchers and staff and $4000 for teachers. This will ensure that all full-time workers can attend at least one conference in their field per year, and will give teachers an opportunity to maintain the research that informs their teaching. We broadly accepted Admin’s proposal for how such funds would be managed and distributed.
- In exchange for higher wages, we are no longer seeking a cap on future health care premiums, but we reasserted the need for broader COBRA access and access to trans-competent health care for our workers.
- We agreed to maintain the status quo when it comes to Retiree Benefits, and argued it should include postdocs who have worked at Harvard for at least ten years. (Note: These benefits are different from basic Retirement savings, in which postdocs, like all other workers, would be vested in three years, on our proposal.)
All in all, we presented fair articles that take into account economic realities in the spirit of eliminating stress, so we can perform our core duties to the best of our abilities.
The corporation’s response, however, was to express “disappointment” at the idea that we ask for more than the bare minimum from the world’s richest university. They characterized our proposals as “not serious,” claiming that we hadn’t made any “real” movement, while they had “generously” agreed to parity in pay between HMS and FAS postdocs and ending time caps for most teachers. While these proposals are indeed decent improvements for some workers in our unit, they are not nearly enough to sustain our careers in the current economy. Yet it’s clear from this latest session that Harvard admin thinks we can subsist on prestige alone, and we don’t need real, material support to do our jobs.
Frustrated yet? Come to our General Membership Meeting on Tuesday October 13th at 5:15pm in-person in Cambridge or in Longwood (food provided, zoom will also be available) to discuss our next steps toward winning our first contract. This includes the state of bargaining, our contract priorities and setting a timeline for our fall actions up to a possible strike deadline should Harvard not meet our fair demands.
In solidarity,
The FAS/HMS/HDS HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee