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A Harvard custodian withdrew a petition to decertify the union representing University custodians last week, saying he hopes to gauge the union’s response before moving further in a campaign to replace it.
Custodian José Rivera withdrew the petition after he submitted worker signatures in support of removing 32BJ, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union that represents custodians at Harvard.
Rivera said he hoped to give the union more time to address the issues raised in the decertification petition, including a lack of communication and favoritism in worker treatment, but added that workers may still try to remove the union again before their contract expires on Nov. 15.
The move to withdraw and wait would allow custodians to approach a union swap more strategically. Federal labor law would have prevented workers from holding separate elections to decertify their union and elect in a new one within a year, according to New York University law professor Samuel Estreicher and Boston University law professor Michael C. Harper ’70 — leaving them without a union while negotiating their next contract.
In a Friday email announcing the withdrawal to custodians and urging them to continue supporting 32BJ, union shop stewards — Harvard custodians who act as 32BJ’s liaisons to their coworkers — wrote that “if there is no other union on the ballot, federal law requires us to wait at least one year to affiliate with another union if we get rid of 32BJ.”
“That means at least a year with no contract, no guaranteed raises, and no job security,” the email read.
Custodians could instead submit a separate petition requesting to certify a different union after receiving signatures from 30 percent of represented workers. A regional office of the National Labor Relations Board would then give the employees the choice to retain their current union, join a new union, or proceed without a union, according to Harper, avoiding the one-year wait.
Rivera said that workers will have until late September to decide whether they would like to pursue this path, since they would want to elect in a new union before their contract expires in November. The new union could not be affiliated with the AFL-CIO, as a “no-raiding” rule prevents a smooth switch from one AFL-CIO affiliate to another.
In a list of frequently asked questions attached to the Friday email to workers, the shop stewards argued that if a non-AFL-CIO union was voted in, it “would likely be a small independent union which would lack the resources and industry power to win strong contracts and represent you well.”
While many of the nation’s largest unions are AFL-CIO affiliated, some larger nonaffiliates include the National Educators Association and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
In the interim, Rivera said workers are hoping that the union steps up its communication. Last time custodians held contract negotiations, workers on the bargaining committee alleged they were being pushed out of contract negotiations. Security guards launched a decertification effort of their own in 2022.
Union officials have already been discussing concerns with workers and met with union stewards last week and on Wednesday morning.
In an emailed statement, 32BJ Executive Vice President Kevin Brown wrote that during the meetings, the union was “pleased to hear from most of the attendees that workers do not want to lose their union healthcare and benefits, and that the decertification campaign is not going forward.”
“At the same time, the meetings were part of our effort to understand the concerns that led some members to start the decertification drive, and to address those issues wherever we can,” Brown added.
In the Friday email to workers, union stewards also sent a link to a petition in support of retaining 32BJ as workers’ bargaining agent and calling on Harvard “to negotiate a fair contract with good wage increases, maintenance of all our benefits, lay-off and workload protections, and a legal fund to help us with immigration issues when we need it!”
The petition was accompanied by testimonials from four union shop stewards urging workers to stay with 32BJ.
The 32BJ petition leaned on Harvard’s battle with the Trump administration and crackdowns on noncitizens to argue that their union could preserve stability amid an increasingly volatile labor landscape.
“As higher education and immigrants continue to be attacked from the federal government, we must have the protections necessary to ensure our jobs remain safe and stable, and that we have enough money, healthcare, and benefits needed to perform at our best,” the petition reads.
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.
