Tell Harvard: We Demand Open Bargaining!
Harvard University Bargaining Team
Cancellation, Cops, and a Call for Collective Action!
Since its founding in 2018, HGSU-UAW has consistently supported an open and transparent bargaining process in which all HGSU members are empowered to observe bargaining sessions with Harvard management. Open bargaining enables all members to engage with the bargaining process, and it ensures Harvard knows that our proposals are important to over 5,000 student workers in our unit – not just the ~20 student workers on our Bargaining Committee.
We have been asking Harvard to allow members to observe bargaining since early February. Harvard management informed us only 48 hours before our first scheduled session that they would not agree to having observers present.
Our Bargaining Committee reluctantly agreed to Harvard’s insistence to hold an initial discussion without members present in the bargaining room. Our Bargaining Committee was hoping to negotiate that future sessions be open to all members to observe. But Harvard was unwilling to listen. They canceled the session the morning of.
When our Bargaining Committee showed up to the building where negotiations were supposed to take place, the University had locked down the entire building. The University was so worried about HGSU members’ presence on the premises that they also had police patrolling the location.
Open bargaining is common in higher education union spaces, and our previous two contracts with Harvard were negotiated this way. Other unions at Harvard also can and do have members present to observe bargaining sessions. We feel that Harvard is unfairly singling out HGSU by refusing us the same privileges as our peers.
We also can't help but wonder - is Harvard feeling emboldened because of the decidedly anti-labor tilt of the new federal administration?
If you have any questions or want to support us with these negotiations, please email us at bargaining@hgsu.org.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
Harvard University Bargaining Team
From:
[Your Name]
We, the undersigned, are dismayed with your unwillingness to agree to an opening bargaining procedure with the HGSU-UAW Bargaining Committee. Bargaining with in-unit observers present has been the standard for previous rounds of HGSU-UAW contract negotiations. Indeed, HAW can invite observers to their bargaining sessions, which are currently ongoing. It is troubling that Harvard is singling out HGSU by seeking to restrict access to bargaining sessions.
Denying open bargaining is not only a rejection of established practice at Harvard. Doing so also directly undercuts our rights as unionized workers to have transparency in the negotiations over our collective working conditions. We as members of HGSU believe that our active participation in union democracy depends on our full understanding of negotiations at the bargaining table. By denying us direct access to these negotiations, our ability to follow the status of bargaining and make informed decisions for ourselves and our coworkers is fundamentally limited. We are strongly against a bargaining process that is less transparent than was afforded to us in the past.
We call on the University to agree to bargaining ground rules that grant HGSU members the ability to engage with the bargaining process similarly to how HGSU members were allowed to engage in our last round of bargaining in 2021. We see anything less than the opportunities HGSU members were entitled to in 2021 bargaining as a direct attack on our right to democratically shape our working conditions. We, the undersigned, are committed to fight for the opportunity for HGSU members to observe negotiations for a contract that will define our working conditions for years.