The Progressive Student Labor Movement and supporters staged a protest outside of the Holyoke Center yesterday t call for a swift implementation of he HCECP report adopted by the University last winter.
More than a month after Harvard janitors ratified a contract to increase their hourly wages to at least $11.35, roughly 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) and supporters crowded outside Holyoke Center yesterday to call for the University to speed up implementation of the wage hikes.
Amidst sounds of bullhorns, chanted slogans and makeshift drums, PSLM members said subcontracted janitors had yet to receive their negotiated wage increases.
The Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP)’s recommendations, adopted largely by University President Lawrence H. Summers, required that “parity” be established between the wages of Harvard employees and subcontracted workers with similar jobs.
“We’ve asked these subcontractors to pay the negotiated wages and they still haven’t,” said former PSLM member and current SEIU employee Aaron D. Bartley.
But according to Marilyn D. Touborg, spokesperson for the Office of Human Resources (OHR), the implementation of the wage raises is moving along quickly.
Touborg said the OHR has developed a plan of how to implement the parity wages and benefits and is now awaiting approval of the plan by Harvard’s 12 different schools.
“It is a question of adapting language that would be adopted for all contractors of a certain size,” Touborg said. “Each department or school will have to negotiate to ensure that this new language is included.”
Touborg also said that since the subcontracted janitor’s wages will be be retroactive to May 2001, any delay in implementation will not cost workers any money.
UNICCO, the University’s largest subcontractor, is also moving along in the implemenation process.
“We agree with parity, it’s just a case of settling the language,” says UNICCO spokesperson Greg Soucy.
A Great Place To Work?
The University has also recently begun a survey of Harvard employees on working conditions and employee satisfaction.
The “Great Place to Work Survey” was originally administered to a portion of the University workforce in 1999. Starting last month, some of the University’s schools have begun to administer the survey once again.
While many of the University’s schools are currently participating in the survey, some of the largest schools—including the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Business School—are not.
OHR spokesperson Henry Ryan said the rest of the University’s schools would conduct these surveys in the fall.
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