Following a year of budget cuts and layoffs, Harvard has entered into contract negotiations with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), which is demanding increased job security and benefits.
The three-year contract between the University and the 4,800-member union of administrative, secretarial and clerical workers expires June 30.
The union has recently criticized the University’s Allston development schedule, claiming that it is “aggressive” and “worrisome” because of the budget restrictions it has imposed on departments across the University. These cuts have translated into widespread layoffs for HUCTW workers as departments restructure operations.
“Virtually all [administrative departments] have reduced staffing,” said Bill Jaeger, director of HUCTW. “Some have had to do that by laying people off. At a lot of those functions, everyone’s working harder and harder, and doing more complicated work with very constrained resources.”
Aside from talking about these budget cut layoffs, HUCTW will also be negotiating wage increases, housing assistance and educational and training benefits with the University for a new three-year agreement.
“We’re negotiating pretty intensely at this point, and having conversations everyday,” said Jaeger, who sits on the eight-person committee charged with negotiating the new contract. “We want to reach an agreement sometime in the next few weeks.”
Jaeger said that while the bulk of the contract will change “very little,” these intense discussions will likely yield some significant improvements in worker security and educational opportunities in the new contract.
A SMOOTHER TRANSITION
Work security, which Jaeger said has been one of the most contentious issues on the table, has become a major rallying point for all campus unions.
Individual union members have organized numerous rallies throughout the year protesting the layoffs. A student-worker rally held last Friday drew over 150 protestors.
“The most significant change or new direction that we’re hoping for in this agreement is that we really want to strengthen the whole work security idea, and try to make it a real certain thing that if your job is eliminated you can move into another Harvard job,” Jaeger said.
“There’s [currently] no penalty prescribed for failure to comply with work security,” he said.
HUCTW’s current work security provisions mandate that “based on their history of proven contributions, displaced staff members will be given hiring preference over outside candidates for any vacant job for which they are suitably qualified.”
But Shamim Morani, an executive HUCTW board member who also serves on the negotiating committee, said that the current provisions have not been enforced throughout the University.
She said that the union’s current work security rules “started going sour about three years ago.”
