Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers

🌞🫑🏓As we enjoy the farmers market, food trucks, games, and artwork on campus, remember that these things wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of HUCTW STAFF!

Thank you HUCTW members who work in Harvard Common Spaces!
Harvard works because we do!

🚗 The HUCTW-Harvard Transportation Fund provides members with partial reimbursement for eligible commuting expenses twice a year. Parking costs above $140 a month (or $1680 per calendar year) in MBTA or LMA parking lots are eligible, as are commuter rail costs above $140 a month for zones 4 - 10. You can see the full eligiblity criteria and apply for the program on the HUCTW website: https://huctw.org/funds-and-loans/transportation-funding

🎉 Today is the 36th anniversary of the day 3,500 Harvard staff voted to form our union, HUCTW. Today we are over 5,500 members strong—in every school, department, and corner of the campus—carrying out essential work towards Harvard’s mission. Harvard works because we do!

Happy International Workers Day! International Workers’ Day came about in the late 19th Century to commemorate the struggle for the eight hour work day. It was created after an incident in 1886, called the Haymarket Affair. In this incident, anarchists in the labor movement of Chicago were wrongly executed in the aftermath of a bombing. President Cleveland made Labor Day official as a September holiday to separate the day from the radical implications of International Workers’ Day. International Workers’ Day is celebrated in most of the rest of the world. Ironically, most of the world knows the story of the Haymarket Incident, while the majority of Americans have forgotten it.

https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/a-short-history-of-may-day-and-international-workers-day/

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/holidays/history-of-may-day

About 4 million more workers will qualify for overtime when the rule is fully implemented in January, the agency estimates. In its first year, the rule is expected to result in an income transfer of about $1.5 billion from employers to workers, mainly from new overtime premiums or from pay raises to maintain the exempt status of some affected employees.

About 4 million more workers will qualify for overtime when the rule is fully implemented in January, the agency estimates. In its first year, the rule is expected to result in an income transfer of about $1.5 billion from employers to workers, mainly from new overtime premiums or from pay raises to maintain the exempt status of some affected employees.

The salary threshold will be updated every three years, starting July 1, 2027, the agency said.

Business groups are expected to fight the effort, as they successfully did when the Obama administration attempted to significantly hike the threshold. Trade associations quickly pushed back on the latest proposed rule when it was released in August, saying it would raise their members’ costs and hurt their operations.

Millions of salaried workers would now be eligible for overtime pay under new Biden administration rule | CNN Politics Millions of salaried workers will soon qualify for overtime pay under a final rule released by the US Department of Labor on Tuesday.

✊🌹 HUCTW stands in solidarity with the Harvard Residential Advisors Union (HURA)— — as they vote to certify their union on April 19th, 23rd, and 24th. As union workers at Harvard, we stand behind the resident tutors, proctors, and house aides in their efforts to organize. All unions at Harvard will be stronger if we continue to build our collective power by supporting one another. We look forward to working together to strengthen our university for the betterment of all students and staff.We also call on Harvard to respect these workers right to organize and to vote, allowing workers to decide for themselves the question of union representation without pressure or interference from the University. All workers deserve to have a voice in the workplace.

✊🌹 HUCTW stands in solidarity with the Harvard Residential Advisors Union (HURA) as they vote to certify their union on April 19th, 23rd, and 24th. As union workers at Harvard, we stand behind the resident tutors, proctors, and house aides in their efforts to organize. All unions at Harvard will be stronger if we continue to build our collective power by supporting one another. We look forward to working together to strengthen our university for the betterment of all students and staff.We also call on Harvard to respect these workers right to organize and to vote, allowing workers to decide for themselves the question of union representation without pressure or interference from the University. All workers deserve to have a voice in the workplace.

🥳 Congrats to our new union siblings in on your union win! Welcome to the Harvard union community!

🥳 CONGRATS TO OUR NEW UNION SIBLINGS AT HLS: Harvard Law School clinical workers voted 62-3 on Wednesday in favor of unionizing under Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers.

Out of 110 eligible voters in the unit, 80 percent showed up to the polls at Roscoe Pound Hall, despite the rainy weather.

After the votes were certified with the National Labor Relations Board Wednesday evening, HAW-UAW Clinical can move forward in negotiations with Harvard.

In addition to the 65 official votes cast, 12 workers also voted under challenge.

According to Rebecca Greening, an organizer for the HLS clinical unit and a lecturer at the Law School, the challenge votes came from those in “alleged supervisory roles,” and their eligibility for representation under HAW-UAW is disputed by Harvard.

Greening said she was “really happy that the turnout was strong.”

“We knew we had strong support based on our organizing conversations,” Greening said. “But to see that in numbers, especially with ‘everyone has a busy schedule and hard to get to somewhere in person,’ we're really happy with that.”

Greening said three of HAW-UAW Clinical’s goals include compensation, addressing limited career pathways, and job mis-titling.

The unit would “like to see much more collaboration with the University of ensuring that people who stay here 20 plus years have ways to develop and advance professionally,” she said.

Harvard Law School Academic Workers Vote 62-3 To Unionize | News | The Harvard Crimson Harvard Law School clinical workers voted 62-3 on Wednesday in favor of unionizing under Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers.

A panel of four Harvard union leaders discussed the motivations, challenges, and successes of the growing push to unionize Harvard during an event hosted by the Labor and Employment Action Project at Harvard Law School.

Moderated by A. Vail Kohnert-Yount, an HLS graduate and the Assistant Director for Region 9A of the United Auto Workers, the event featured panelists J. Gregory Given; an expository writing preceptor and member of Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers; Emma I. Scott, a law lecturer and member of the HAW-UAW HLS Clinical Unit; Travis Cabbell, an Adams resident tutor and member of Harvard Union of Residential Advisors; and Danielle Boudrow, a recording secretary and organizer with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.

The event was hosted by the Labor and Employment Action Project at HLS, a student group focused on worker advocacy and education around labor and employment issues.

Kohnert-Yount introduced the event as part of “a greater resurgence of labor and union rights” on campus leading up to the HAW-UAW union recognition elections on April 3-4.

Last month, HAW-UAW and Harvard reached an agreement allowing the group to hold a unionization election in early April, bypassing a lengthy union recognition hearing process with the National Labor Relations Board. If the vote to unionize succeeds, HAW-UAW will begin preparing to bargain with the University.

Given said the renewed push to unionize Harvard has been a “long time coming.”

Scott said the HAW-UAW HLS Clinical Unit is primarily concerned about the “lack of transparency around salary, working conditions, job security, and career advancement within clinical programs at HLS.”

Clinicians are having to “scrape together pennies in order to make ends meet and have this opportunity here at Harvard,” Scott said. “We know that our instructors are actually paid at the 25th percentile compared to others across the country.”

Boudrow voiced a similar sentiment, claiming that at Harvard, it can feel as if “you are being paid in prestige rather than salary.”

Kohnert-Yount said the efforts to unionize come in response to the corporate attitude with which Harvard treats its non-tenure-track faculty and workers.

“Cambridge is very much a company town” as a result of Harvard, she said. “The way to fight back against a company town is to make it a union town.”

‘Make It A Union Town’: Harvard Labor Organizers Discuss Push to Unionize at HLS Event | News | The Harvard Crimson A panel of four Harvard union leaders discussed the motivations, challenges, and successes of the growing push to unionize Harvard during an event hosted by the Labor and Employment Action Project at Harvard Law School.

The lunch break reduction for SEIU library guards was “enacted the day of” the memo’s release, and “the 15-minute breaks were eliminated two days prior to receipt of the memo.” Nowsiewski said “everybody’s very stressed” by the new policy. “Going from 90 minutes to 30 minutes is, as you can imagine, very stressful,” Nowiszewski said. “I think it passes down the chain.”

“We’re scarfing down something from a vending machine quickly, and I think it affects the way we do our job,” he added. “If you can’t get sustenance and you’re additionally stressed — you’re not performing as well on the job.”

A Securitas guard who works in a library post said they have been “struggling every day” under the tighter time constraint.

“When I’m running back and forth just to eat lunch, it feels pretty demeaning,” the guard said.

Nowsiewski said more guards have taken to eating meals at their posts as a result of the policy change, which his boss has noticed.

Nowiszewski said the change sends a message.

“We like to be happy, we like to be comfortable, we want to be secure while providing security for everybody else,” Nowiszewski said. “We like to be treated fairly and feel like we’re part of the community.”

“When you give someone one-third of the break you’re giving everyone else — it says a lot,” he added.

Securitas Cuts Harvard Guards’ Lunch Hour by Half, Eliminates Daytime Breaks | News | The Harvard Crimson Security guards assigned to library posts in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences were notified last Tuesday that their break hours would be cut from 90 to 30 minutes across eight-hour shifts.

❄️Check out the Harvard-HUCTW inclement weather policy here: huctw.org/snowpolicy

Congrats Newton Teachers Association! 💙🎉

We have a contract!