On November 8, Massachusetts voters decisively chose to keep the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts by voting no on question two by a margin of 62.1% to 37.9%. Congratulations to everyone who worked tirelessly to keep money in our public schools! We won this victory by bringing together teachers, parents, students, unions, and community allies to fight privatization efforts from big-money and out of state donors.
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
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'
