Despite the University’s financial constraints, the union was able to win a host of new benefits for its employees during this year’s negotiations, gaining funding for childcare subsidies and housing assistance for workers who are renting or buying a home for the first time.

University Director of Labor Relations Bill Murphy said both negotiating teams were happy with their results and confident that the new contract will be ratified by a wide margin.

“Both sides walked out from these negotiations feeling like we’ve worked well together,” he said. “You’re always balancing what’s fair for the workers versus what’s needed for the University as it’s going forward.”

Some union members, however, including O’Brien, expressed disappointment with the proposal, vowing to vote against it in June.

“They believe that it’s our responsibility to help Harvard save money because somehow that will help us,” O’Brien said.

Now a unionized library assistant in Technical Services, O’Brien has sat on the HUCTW negotiating team in past years.

“We should have fought for something to be in the contract that basically says, ‘No layoffs,’” she said. “We should have been mobilized to be able to do that.”

O’Brien decried the union’s negotiating style, calling for more member involvement and openness throughout the process.

“You’re supposed to poll the members, go to Harvard, and have the members behind you,” she said. “Our current leadership doesn’t run it like that. It’s undemocratic, and it’s wrong.”

Geoff Carens, meanwhile, a library worker in Government Documents, said he did not rule out the possibility of a union-wide strike if the new contract was not ratified. Still, he conceded that such an outcome was unlikely.

“No matter how bad it is, the contract usually passes,” he said.

Jaeger refused to respond to those criticisms, citing the much weaker position of non-unionized administrative workers at Harvard, who will see only a 1- or 2-percent pay increase this year.

“I think a lot of people know it’s a hard, uncertain time,” he said, “But the 2001 agreement was ratified by about an 85-percent majority and I think the early indications say that this might be an even more heavily supported agreement.”

—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.