Victory at Harvard! Workers Settle Strike with a Winning Contract

HUDS workers celebrate their new contract. Photo Credit: UNITE HERE Local 26

After a three week long strike, over 700 Harvard dining workers settled their contract with the Harvard University on October 25, 2016. After months of negotiations, over 700 Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 26 went on strike at 6AM on October 5, 2016. HUDS workers’ new contract meets all of their demands: a $35,000 per year base salary for full-time workers, no increases in healthcare costs, and more opportunities for year-round work. For more on the contract, please the WBUR interview with Brian Lang here.

The NE JLC was active in supporting HUDS workers throughout their fight. We joined workers on the picket line, rallied, and supported students organizing in solidarity with workers. NE JLC Campus Initiative Fellow Grace Evans and former Fellow Gabe Hodgkins helped lead the solidarity efforts of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM). Our annual community meeting focused on the HUDS strike, where we were honored to hear from three HUDS workers, Aaron Ducket, Annabella Pappas, and Chris Pappas, as well as from Brian Lang, President of Local 26. We collected almost $400 for the HUDS strike assistance fund. NE JLC Board Co-Chair Don Siegel wrote a letter for The Harvard Crimson in support of the strike.

Harvard Crimson Letter to the Editor by Don Siegel, NE JLC Co-Chair

Image credit: UNITE HERE Local 26, which represents the Harvard University Dining Services workers

By Don Siegel, Co-Chair of the New England Jewish Labor Committee

Originally published in the Harvard Crimson. Read the original here.

To the Editor:

It is always sad when a great university misses a significant teaching moment. The prolonged strike of food service workers at Harvard is an example of just such a missed opportunity.

Press reports indicate that negotiators are bogged down over two issues: a guaranteed annual income for full-time staffers and health insurance. The first derives from the seasonal nature of the academic year and the inability of many Harvard food service workers to collect unemployment benefits during seasonal layoffs. The second is a universal problem that has an outsized impact on low wage workers like the strikers.

When I studied at Harvard, labor relations greats were on the faculty. I studied with Derek Bok and Archibald Cox and Business School Professors James Healy and Thomas Kennedy. Over the decades since then Harvard has led the way in establishing reasonable-and in some cases generous-labor standards for its employees and its contractors.

Approximately 25 years ago, Harvard set an area wide precedent in the construction industry by entering into a wide ranging project labor agreement for university capital improvements. Brokered by the late John Dunlop, it set meaningful minimum area standards guarantees in exchange for a no-strike commitment on covered jobs. Billions of dollars of construction work has been completed under that agreement and its successors.

More recently Harvard extended its creative problem solving to service employees and service contractors. In an effort to avert a protracted custodians strike the University adopted a "parity policy" extending many of its own meaningful employment standards to its service providers. Not only did that step resolve a labor management dispute, it improved the wages and working conditions of hundreds of area workers and their families.

That creativity and ingenuity have yet to show their face in the negotiations to end this dispute. The University seems dug in and the workers feel disrespected. Local 26, on behalf of hundreds of longtime, loyal employees has brought legitimate issues to the employer's attention. The response has been disappointing and demoralizing.

As income inequality continues to grow surely the world's wealthiest university can take the steps necessary to address the legitimate needs of some of its lowest paid workers. Harvard has proven that it has the capability to creatively respond to the needs of its workers. It is time to prove that it still has the will to do so.

Donald J. Siegel, a 1971 Harvard Law School graduate, is an attorney in Boston at Segal Roitman, LLP.

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We encourage you to support the strike by attending the rally this Saturday at 3PM at the Cambridge Common park and by donating to the strike assistance fund, which provides striking dining workers with material assistance.

Harvard Dining Workers' Contract Fight

Photo: Brian Lang, the president of Local 26, stands alongside HUDS employees during Wednesday's rally on Massachusetts Avenue. LAUREN A. SIERRA via the Harvard Crimson

Harvard University Dining Services workers' contract expires Saturday, September 17. HUDS employees, represented by UNITE HERE Local 26, are fighting for a sustainable yearly income and affordable healthcare.The average HUDS worker earns $21.89/hr, and most support families. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for 1 adult supporting 1 child in Boston/Cambridge/Newton is $26.87/hr. After months of collective bargaining, workers announced that they are considering a strike dependent on the outcome of these negotiations.

"HUDS workers’ contribution to Harvard goes beyond feeding hundreds of students, cleaning up after them, and maintaining order in the dining hall. They also help build and fortify the community and offer support to students. Harvard needs to recognize the important role—one that is not fungible—that HUDS workers play on campus, and compensate them accordingly."

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Support HUDS workers by signing the petition:TINYURL.COM/SUPPORTTHESTRIKE

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Read more about the campaign:http://www.thecrimson.com/artic…/…/9/13/support-HUDS-strike/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/…/9/8/HUDS-prepares-vote/

November 20th! Save the Date! Rally for the Doubletree Hotel Workers!

Save the Date! November 20th

4pm Interfaith Service with Rabbis Barbara Penzner and Toba Spitzer

5pm Rally at Harvard Science Center

Activities all day long!Contact Marya for details by at NewEnglandJLC@jewishlabor.org or 617-227-0888.

 

harvardhoteljustice.org

On November 20th, we expect hundreds of people will march for justice as Harvard's DoubleTree workers continue to seek a fair process to decide on unionization.

The incidence rate for work-related injury and illness for workers across all job classifications at Harvard's hotel during 2013 was 75% higher than the average for hotel and other accommodation workers in Massachusetts during 2012-the most recent year for which the government has reported data.  "Hotel workers already have high rates of injury," said Dr. Laura Punnett, an ergonomics expert at the UMASS Lowell Center for Women and Work who will also join the roundtable."When we see a hotel with higher injury rates and a heavy workload, it raises questions about potential danger."

Many of the immigrant women who clean Harvard’s Double Tree Suites report that their work causes them pain. In a 2013 study of workers at Harvard’s hotel, 100% of surveyed housekeepers reported that they were in pain. The hotel’s record show that housekeepers have suffered injuries in recent years as diverse as straining their backs and shoulders, twisting a knee, splashing Comet in their eyes, tripping over bedsheets, spraining an ankle, and more.Harvard’s housekeepers also report high workload. They are responsible for cleaning 14 two-room suites per day, when housekeepers at unionized properties in Boston typically clean 15 single rooms, and if they clean a suite, it counts as two.It is impossible to measure an injury rate at the hotel in years 2010-2012 since Harvard’s hotel failed to comply with this obligation. In 2013, the incidence rate for work-related injury and illness for workers at the hotel was 75% higher than the rate for all Massachusetts hotel workers and other accommodation workers for 2012.In October 2014 after meeting with housekeepers from the Harvard’s hotel, Boston City Councilors Michelle Wu and Ayanna Pressley and Cambridge City Councilor Denise Simmons called on Harvard president Drew Faust to review the safety of Harvard’s hotel housekeepers.On October 15, 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began an inspection of health and safety practices at Harvard’s Double Tree Suites in response to a complaint by the hotel’s workers.Source: “Our Pain, Harvard’s Gain”

Join us - pledge two hours to these brave housekeepers by joining them in support on November 20th.(Please, contact Marya if you are interested at NewEnglandJLC@jewishlabor.org or 617 227 0888)

Victory for the "Hyatt 100"

Five years ago, three Hyatt Hotels in the Boston area abruptly fired 98 housekeepers. The hotels brought in replacement workers, paying them roughly half the hourly wage. The fired housekeepers had been told to train these new housekeepers who turned out to be their replacements.

The fired workers didn't belong to a union, but they quickly approached a local of UNITE-HERE. A nationwide boycott of Hyatt hotels and then a global boycott were among the results. The Jewish Labor Committee, its regional offices and members jumped in to support the workers. An historic settlement was reached with most Hyatt hotels, but not the ones in the Boston area. So the New England JLC kept up its activism.Right from the beginning, the NE JLC was in the fight with both feet. Rabbi Barbara Penzner of Temple Hillel B'nai Torah and a co-chair of NE JLC along with our regional director Marya Axner, mobilized congregants, rabbis and JLC members. to support the boycott of the Hyatt Regency Boston, Hyatt Boston Harbor and Hyatt Regency Cambridge.Rabbi Penzner drafted a petition signed by Jewish clergy around the country and worked to keep religious groups from holding events at Hyatt hotels. She traveled to Chicago to confront Hyatt executives and rallied clergy to disrupt shareholder meetings. The NE JLC participated in rallies, arranged for letters to be written and helped keep the issue in front of the public.Finally, a few weeks ago, the Boston-area Hyatts gave in, agreeing to pay $1 million to the fired housekeepers and offering them hiring preference at future Hyatt-operated hotels.All of us at the JLC are proud of the work that the NE JLC did on behalf of the housekeepers and of the fact that the Boston Globe story and editorial in particular highlighted Rabbi Penzner's activity, which were so important to this victory.Read more from 'The Jewish Advocate'       

Boycott the Harvard-owned Allston DoubleTree Hotel

On Thursday, March 27th a boycott was launched at the Harvard-owned DoubleTree Hotel in Allston. The New England Jewish Labor Committee is supporting this worker-intiated boycott of the DoubleTree. We are supporting  hotel workers who have asked Harvard to grant them a fair process in deciding on unionization. Harvard has thus far refused to meet with hotel workers. A boycott is a serious step for the DoubleTree workers because it could mean fewer hours for them.More than 200 people came to the march and rally at the DoubleTree to show their support. There were DoubleTree workers, New England Jewish Labor Committee members, UNITE HERE members from other hotels, union leaders, Harvard students, Cambridge City Council members, and others who came to show their support for the workers.We ask all Jewish community organizations and individuals to observe this boycott and have their events and celebrations in other hotels. For a guide to hotels in Boston, click here.