According to that investigation, the appearance of the two students led to a confrontation between Mazariegos and Paul Kelly, a supervisor from another part of the Science Center.

At one point, according to the report, Mazariegos "pushed [Kelly] with both hands."

Mazariegos denies that she touched Kelly. The University report concluded that there had been a "use of force," which was neither "acceptable or defensible." Mazariegos was fired.

Now, Mazariegos says she cannot find any forum for her grievance against Harvard outside of the University's own channels.

The Larger Problem

Even union officials admit that the mail center is a hot spot, an especially contentious workplace because of the low supervision and high percentage of casual workers.

"Overall, it has to be understood as an exceptional situation. It was an unusually blatant violation of the rules of the casual payroll," says HUCTW Director Bill Jaeger.

"Most of the problems that been uncovered in the last year are subtler shades of confusion than that...It is an illustration of the kind of the organizational problems that we get into with the heavy reliance on unbenefited workers," he continues