"[My manager] was scheduling me for times I couldn’t work or didn’t know about," Brown said. He and other shop stewards also contend that HUDS fired him without following steps promised in workers’ contracts. "She disciplines you because she’s trying to get you." As a shop steward, Brown said he has long tried to speak up when he perceives mistreatment by management of any worker in his dining area.
"The deck is stacked against employees," Brown said. "They try to limit union conversations in the dining hall. People are afraid to talk to you." His co-worker Jeffrey Wiggins, a dining services employee of nearly a decade, said that managers seemed to be upset that workers looked up to Brown.
"Every time they talked to him, it would be negative," Wiggins said. "They just started nitpicking on certain things he did.... The main reason why he was let go is he was helping others."
Michael C. Charles, a checker in Quincy who has also helped organize the petition, said that he hoped it would help Brown, who had helped many other workers, get back to work.
"He’s sticking his neck out for everyone else. We’re behind him 110 percent," Charles said, emphasizing that the workers’ contract provides for shop stewards to represent workers’ concerns to management. "He shouldn’t be penalized for that—it’s part of our contract."
"We’re going to fight this vigorously," Childs said. “He was one of the most trained shop stewards.” He outlined the petitioners’ next steps: delivering the signatures they have collected, stapled to a grievance, to Brown’s former manager on Monday, and attending a hearing with managers on Wednesday. That meeting will be the third and final step in the grievance process outlined in the University’s agreement with UNITE HERE! Local 26.
Brown put more stock in the grievance process but said he appreciated his co-workers’ petition. "It’s a nice gesture," he said. "I think anything that shows unity and strength is a good thing.... It can’t hurt."
Local 26 President Brian Lang said that he could not comment on any specific case, but that he supported the spirit of the petition. "It’s a good thing that...the workers stand up and back each other up," he said. "That’s a major part of what being a union is."
—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu.