Tufts Janitors Reach Tentative Agreement, Avoid Strike

By Kathleen Contivia The Boston GlobeAfter a 12-hour marathon bargaining session and with just two hours before a midnight deadline for a threatened janitors’ strike, the workers who clean Tufts University and the school’s maintenance contractor reached a four-year tentative agreement Monday night.About 200 Tufts janitors will see their hourly wages increase to $21.55 from $19.35 over the next four years, if the janitors ratify the contract. The workers’ union also received a commitment from contractor C&W Services to create more full-time positions over the life of the contract.

The Newton-based maintenance contractor also agreed to increases to the workers’ pension and training funds, and to provide health insurance at no additional cost to members who work full time, according to a spokesman for 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the workers.The janitors are scheduled to vote on the agreement Wednesday.

“This is a good agreement that opens a path to the middle class for hardworking men and women who are an indispensable part of the Tufts community,” said Roxana Rivera, vice president of 32BJ SEIU.C&W Services, a division of brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield, said in a statement they are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with the union.“We’ve bargained in good faith and offered a fair and comprehensive package to our employees,” the company said in a statement. “We are pleased that the Union leadership has accepted this offer and will present it to their membership for ratification.”

A spokesman for Tufts, which was not involved in the negotiations, said in a statement that the school is thankful a tentative agreement “that is fair for all parties” was reached.“As always, we value C&W janitors’ contributions to our community, and we look forward to their continued presence on our campus,” said spokesman Patrick Collins.Last week, the janitors unanimously voted to authorize a strike if an agreement with C&W Services wasn’t reached by the end of Monday, when their contract was set to expire. The tentative agreement averted a strike that could have potentially started Tuesday. Tufts announced it had a contingency plan in place if its janitors walked off the job.The agreement does not include language the union sought that would have addressed workers’ concerns over excessive workloads they said were caused by a restructuring of services at the university last year that resulted in the layoffs of nine custodians and moving other workers to weekend shifts.Eugenio Villasante, spokesman for 32BJ SEIU, said while they will continue to make sure the janitors have a fair workload, the union considers C&W’s “strong commitment to create full time jobs” a victory for the workers.About 60 percent of the janitors who maintain the campus straddling Somerville and Medford work full-time, according to 32BJ SEIU.The two sides had been in negotiations since August.

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 and Dining Workers Reach 'Tentative Agreement'

Union supporters gather outside of 124 Mount Auburn St. during the Monday's protests. Photo Credit: Thomas W. FranckBy BRANDON J. DIXON, HANNAH NATANSON, and LEAH S. YARED, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERSUPDATED: October 25, 2016, at 2:59 a.m.Harvard and its dining workers reached a “tentative agreement” around 1:05 a.m. Tuesday morning—the closest the two parties have come to a contract settlement during months of tense negotiations.Brian Lang, president of UNITE HERE Local 26—the Boston-based union that represents Harvard’s dining workers—said the accord “accomplished all of our goals.” The deal is yet to be ratified; it must first be sent to a 30-member bargaining subcommittee Tuesday, Lang added, before the full membership of dining workers in the union vote on the deal Wednesday.Though he declined to provide specific details on the agreement, Lang said HUDS employees could return to work as early as Thursday. According to an email sent last week by College Dean for Finance and Administration Sheila C. Thimba, it will take at most two days from the official end of the strike before the University’s dining halls can resume “normal operations.”University spokesperson Tania deLuzuriaga wrote in an email that further details about the agreement would be forthcoming Tuesday morning.Protesters greeted news of the tentative deal with cheers and jubilation outside 124 Mt. Auburn St., the Harvard office building where Monday’s negotiations took place.“I’m feeling great about it, everything feels good,” dining services worker William H. Sawyer, who participated in the negotiation process, said at around 1:30 a.m. as he prepared to bike home. “The students and everyone behind us [have] been really inspirational… they kept us up, up, up, up and alive about this.”“Even right now, they still here,” he added, pointing to the handful of students—all members of the Student Labor Action Movement—who remained outside the building, shouting and jumping up and down in celebration in the wee hours of the morning. “Everybody else gone home.”In early October, HUDS workers launched an unprecedented strike—their first to take place during the academic year—calling on the University to increase wages and to maintain the current health benefits package it offers to dining hall employees. The last HUDS strike occurred more than 30 years ago.The tentative agreement came after a day of intense picketing and rallying by both HUDS workers and student supporters. More than 500 students walked out of class—the second walkout of the strike—before marching to 124 Mt. Auburn St. for a sit-in that lasted late into the night, wrapping up around 10:30 p.m. at the urging of police officers.By the time Harvard affiliates and union negotiators announced their tentative agreement, only a small cohort of students remained outside the building, along with a few HUDS workers. At one point during the night, students and strikers joined hands and marched in a circle, singing “We Shall Overcome.”Abhinav Reddy, a School of Public Health student and graduate student union organizer, described the final moments of the night. Local 26’s bargaining team joined the demonstrators remaining outside, he said, and “everyone gathered back up and started chanting.”“You could just see it on their faces before they even said anything,” Reddy said. “And everybody was like screaming and yelling, and then they said ‘we won, we got it.’”SLAM member Grace F. Evans ’19, also present at the negotiations’ conclusion, said workers came out of the building visibly emotional before Lang announced to the assembled crowd of supporters that the union had “won.”“It was a really emotional moment,” she said. “The workers were crying but Brian Lang was smiling, so we knew it was good news.”Reflecting on the day’s events, Evans said she felt students had been important to HUDS workers’ success, a sentiment some workers echoed.“It was definitely powerful that we were here,” Evans said, referring to the earlier lobby sit-in. “The negotiators looked down and they saw that.”Hundreds of students and HUDS supporters marched into 124 Mount Auburn Street, home to several Harvard offices, where negotiations over contracts continue Monday afternoon. Communication between Harvard and UNITE HERE Local 26 is being facilitated through mediators.The nearly three-week long strike shook Harvard’s campus, led to multiple dining hall closures, and spurred waves of student activism and nation-wide support. At the largest strike event Saturday, more than 1,000 HUDS workers and supporters marched to Cambridge City Hall.Edward B. Childs, a dining services workers who picketed from 7 a.m Monday morning until around 1 a.m Tuesday, said he had suspected Monday’s negotiation session would be fruitful.“Well, with the escalation we had this weekend and today, I was expecting something,” Childs said. “I knew something had to break.”Hundreds of students and HUDS supporters marched into 124 Mount Auburn Street, home to several Harvard offices, where negotiations over contracts continue Monday afternoon. Communication between Harvard and UNITE HERE Local 26 is being facilitated through mediators. Photo Credit: Thomas W. Franck via The Harvard Crimson

New York Times Op-Ed: Struggling to Serve at the Nation’s Richest University

by Rosa Ines Rivera*Cambridge, Mass. — I’ve been at Harvard University for 17 years, but I’ve never been in a classroom here. I’m a cook in the dining halls. I work in the cafeteria at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where every day I serve amazing students studying medicine, nutrition and child welfare, as well as the doctors and researchers who train them.While I’ve earned no college credits here, I’ve had a lesson in hypocrisy.On my way to work each morning, I pass a building with the inscription: “The highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being.” If Harvard believes this, why is the administration asking dining hall workers to pay even more for our health care even though some of us pay as much as $4,000 a year in premiums alone?I serve the people who created Obamacare, people who treat epidemics and devise ways to make the world healthier and more humane. But I can’t afford the health care plan Harvard wants us to accept.That’s why I have been on strike with 750 co-workers for more than two weeks. That’s why the other day, co-workers and I were arrested after we sat down in Harvard Square, blocking traffic, in an act of civil disobedience. And that’s why the medical school students, in their white coats, have been walking the picket line with us in solidarity.The co-pays alone can be a problem. When a doctor told me my daughter had failed a hearing test and might need surgery, I thought about what care I could do without. I recently skipped an appointment to have a spot on my lung checked for cancer to save on the co-pays.Medical students analyzed Harvard’s proposal and found that the cost of premiums alone could eat up almost 10 percent of my income. And Harvard wants to increase our co-pays for every single doctor visit to $25, from $15, for primary care and to $100, from zero, for outpatient hospital care and some tests. Some costs would be reimbursed for lower-income workers, but out-of-pocket expenses would still be hard to meet.The students say that Harvard’s proposal is unaffordable for nearly all of us according to state government guidelines. If it goes through, I will keep avoiding the doctor to save that money for my kids’ co-pays. Any increase puts me at the breaking point.Harvard is the richest university in the nation, with a $35 billion endowment. But I can’t live on what Harvard pays me. I take home between $430 and $480 a week, and this August, I fell behind on my $1,150 rent and lost my apartment. Now my two kids and I are staying with my mother in public housing, with all four of us sharing a single bedroom. I grew up in the projects and on welfare. I want my 8-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son to climb out of the cycle of poverty. But for most of my time at Harvard it’s been hard.The average dining hall worker makes $31,193 a year, higher than other cafeterias in the area, but it still doesn’t go far around Boston. That’s why we’re asking for an annual salary of $35,000 for some financial stability, particularly since most dining halls are open only during the school year. Right now I’m lucky to work in one of the few cafeterias that’s open all year.I know that health care costs are going up everywhere, and I don’t have all the answers. But there must be some way not to shift costs onto Harvard’s poorest workers.If good health is truly “one of the fundamental rights of every human being,” then shouldn’t that also apply to the human beings working in Harvard’s cafeterias?*Rosa Ines Rivera, a member of Unite Here Local 26, is a dining hall worker at Harvard University. Article via The New York Times.

Victory for 13,000 Janitors!

On Friday, September 30, 13,000 janitors represented by SEIU 32BJ, reached a tentative agreement on their 4-year master contract! These janitors maintain buildings across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, includingJohn Hancock, Prudential Tower, Vertex and Biogen, State Street. The new contract provides a 12% increase in wages over the life of the contract, expands employer-paid healthcare to family members of full-time employees, and creates more opportunities for full-time work.

The JLC is proud to have participated in many ways in this campaign, from marching janitors to calling for a fair contract as part of the larger faith community. Sixteen rabbis signed the faith statement as they prepared for Rosh Hashanah. Thank you to everyone who supported the fight over the past year.

32BJ janitors continue to negotiate their contracts at Tufts University and Harvard University.

Tufts Justice for Janitors Campaign

Community members march during the SEIU rally against proposed janitorial cuts on Saturday, May. 16. Photo Credit: Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

The contract that covers the almost 200 janitors who maintain the Tufts Medford/Somerville campus is set to expire September 30. Tufts has $1.6 billion in revenue, including $800 million in operating budget and a growing endowment, and tuition continues to rise, yet many janitors haven't seen a raise in decades. Workers, represented by 32BJ SEIU, are fighting for better compensation, affordable family health insurance, more full-time work, and better job security.“All of the workload that was done by two or three people before, it gets done by one or two” Adelaida Colón, a janitor on the campus, told the Tufts Daily.Tufts janitors are overworked and underpaid. It's time for a good contract!#JusticeforJanitors #RaiseAmerica

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For a more comprehensive history of the Tufts janitors, click here.Read more about the current campaign in the Tufts Daily and on the SEIU 32BJ website.