Oh hi. Yeah, this is she. Thank you. Hi, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me.
I guess just to start, can you just tell me your first and last name and pronouns and then like what year and program you're in at Harvard
history department
Okay, cool. Um, and then so I know that you set the strike deadline last week and it ends tonight. Have you seen movement from the university in the last week? Are you still expecting to striking tonight um, ideally, it would be on the record, if the article is gonna come out tomorrow night, and it's just gonna be like about assuming that you start striking. It'll change if you don't start striking. It'll be about kind of Columbia, grad student standing in solidarity. With the Harvard grad students union
Yeah. Morning I start to talk but it will begin tomorrow morning.
Okay, um, and do you are there like big issues that you are hoping the university might make movement on in order to prevent a strike?
Yeah, I mean, right now, we're not sure we're going to be able to prevent the strike. We are meeting with the university today at 2:30pm or undefined amount of time. The university could come to impose on concrete proposal. We have no idea yet what their plans are. But they've been set up a meeting to talk to us ahead of the strike deadline. It did a similar thing on our first strike. We went in three days strike starting October 27. So last month, and on October 26th, the day before the strike, they also came to the table with a proposal, which we then responded to later that day. But following day we met in bargaining. They didn't respond. And since then, we have not had any official exchange of proposals. We've had a few phone calls or art director conversations, but we have not had any formal bargaining since October 27. So a lot of work would have to get done today in order to have a contract that's tentatively agreed to and only a tentative agreement would be able to essentially trade plans. I think that's positional.
Yeah. If you do strike, do you have any estimate of how many workers might be going on strike?
Yeah, so it's hard to say. I mean, our SCB had about 1800 1900. Folks. Yes. On the strength authorization vote. So that's to give you an estimate of how many people are engaged and willing to go on strike. But that's an imperfect testament in the sense of actual withholding of labor. People. So I think, I think, in general, we've been saying that the number of the sap is, is the number of servers
and was that do you have numbers about during the three days strike? Do you have a sense of how many workers are on strike?
We have a sense, but the important thing to mention about the district benefit is that it's extremely disruptive. I don't know the specifics of how SBC is, is conducting their strike. But you have a class Class classroom buildings. We have made meaning we've set up picketers right outside of buildings so that they that folks would have to go through a picket line actually enter those buildings. And we've been able to garner solidarity from undergrads who had a walkout during our first strike is spread the news about our strike through through undergrads. A lot of them have been pressuring their faculty members have canceled courses. We've reached the faculty themselves during this strike. It's coming up. We've asked for Wednesday and Thursday to beat the two days of faculty solidarity when you cancel passengers on picket line. The idea of having picket lines set up outside of a building is because if a picket line is their university, faculty members and undergrads, when you set the picket line outside of a building, you're saying do not cross did not cross into this building. We are attempting to shut down the activity within this building. You know the people anyway, yes, but by doing so you've effectively crossed. We have not called for a general cancellation of classes for the entire strike because we understand that this is not a faculty strike and undergrad strike business as you know. But just like let's say you've got a supermarket and there's a pickle in your shop. You know you're prescient. The grocery store Yes, you are. But you did take classes here.
Yeah, um, and do you have any sense of how long you might expect the strike to continue or is it just sort of until a tentative agreement is reached.
And we're not on strike until we have a contract, for example. But we are on strike for an undetermined amount of time. The idea the goal of this strike is to get as close to as possible so we tend to move in and even maybe make a tentative agreement during the strike. But that is an open questions that first strike that was not a three day strike. That was determined that we knew it was gonna be three days. That's how we talked about it. It was essentially now looking back at it like this morning, to take it longer. Our members vote on the end of the strike. So, you know, we're having membership meetings to strike and determine days and at those meetings, members have the right to emotion and the strike. But the question is, we have a contract and the strike the strike for other reasons will be called often up to our members to vote on members will get a ballot. On what
do you think that there are ways in which Colombia going through this same process has influenced your decisions made by your union? And your bargaining team?
From the very beginning, it was the Columbia decision. 2016 actually opened the doors for us to really accelerate our organizing and get recognized right to engage in bargaining in the private sector in higher ed. I think our demands are very similar. In the context, we're operating in Ivy League universities, very high returns. Like absolutely, absolutely disposable. That's something that we see Columbia, Harvard both go to outside counsel to negotiate even though that's maybe not the case and how they negotiate with the unions. At least most of the workers labor conditions here on the campus to negotiate future parents. The contract contracts with local union leadership which is an amalgamated Union a lot of different shops, right. And, you know, so that that experience has been quite different. You know, Colombia reached a tentative agreement in March, which the workers that have voted down back to negotiations, we have not had that experience. So, our our specific histories and trajectories are a little different. In general, we're in the same fight for improved harassment and discrimination protections and processes, fighting for living wage, fighting for comprehensive health care. We were able to win Dental in this in this campaign. Obviously not fighting for it, I think, vision right. We're also fighting for a union shop. That's something that's extremely important to be able to sustain a union. Every worker, you know, for instance, with a union representation, whichever one has membership status, we had a year with an open shop, not a pleasant experience, Colombian TA to contract with an agency shop and advocate it down. So we've had you know, there's differences you can sell from where our organizing, our history has gone. But, but in terms of just like what our role is, what are places where two unions are about to go on strike, essentially, at the same time, they're very administrative. And I think we're very similar issues and very similar. Yeah, yeah, we're proud we're proud of this relationship with
Is there any like direct coordination you do with the union and bargaining team here? Is it more just kind of
organizing conversations together? We knew we were we are going to strike situations. We're gonna get into wearing contacts over the summer, early fall. Behind like solidarity and social media, a lot of us know each other and have, you know, basically, developed and grown it through our respective campaigns at the same time. So yeah, we definitely think this relationship is extremely important. And in Colombia went something that sets the stage in our lives as we went along. You know, and we know you know, we have a sense that Harvard and Columbia's administrations, you know, they must talk to each other as well. These are two of the most prestigious universities in the world. Even though they do things very differently. I think they, you know, they're, they have their differences and like, you know, in some areas of Harvard actually is actually much more open to negotiating and other areas and in that same area of Colombia isn't and vice versa. They're still out there. Sure, talk to each other about how to especially suppress, they do start power. But, you know, for that reason, it's always a good day players and their teachers, for the workers. Yeah. Um,
do you think are there places that you're still hoping for movement throughout Harvard that we've kind of gotten into from negotiations like places where Columbia has been more willing to move at Harvard hasn't? Yeah,
yeah. Right where the union is very important. The unions more broadly than just hydro. Essentially, the right to work laws that were passed in many states and has affected now the public sector, essentially, our position is that we should essentially have a right to workshop, we should have a open shop in which paying dues is completely voluntary, depending on the decision made by an individual worker. This is all like free speech, sort of American freedom discourse, right? But the reality is that workers once they reach once they start working at a unionized workplace, are represented by the union bargaining happens, representing them when they have a grievance they can take to the union to represent for a union steward or a Union officer to represent them and get them through an issue. benefits all of these things are all one during negotiations and affect everyone so we believe everyone should have a voice. Membership is totally optional. You can you know, you can have to become a member of the Union. If you don't want to be a member you that's fine. But if you're a member, you pay agency fees. And that is usually not always but usually quickly to dues because you're getting the same representation and the same benefits, rights as any other worker in the workplace. But you want to be a part of union or not. That's up to you but you still have to pay for the right of representation and all the benefits and being part of a bargaining unit that, you know, collectively empowers everyone, when you have it open up. Over time. The Union can't sustain itself financially as a very hard time being able to run a campaign. Take cases to arbitration to be able to basically do the things it needs to do in order to actually enforce the contract and with better contracts. Right. So your power erodes over time. And that's why this was a very strategic move from the better Republican Party to implement these right to work laws because incentives of high density unionization, when you made a read to work, suddenly those those those those unions started losing bargaining power. And therefore, employers enough feel the need to actually, you know, listen to worker demands through the union. So that's what the Colombian actually offered as WC in negotiations last last March, it was part of the tentative agreement now because of the things that were missing from the membership. Clause in our first contract our negotiations here it's very difficult. It's very difficult. The other way around. I think Colombia's actually extremely harsh when it comes to things, disciplinary procedures, that we were able to win grievance and arbitration on for example, like certain forms of dissent, discipline and discrimination, retaliation that happens against workers. We were able to win arbitration on those things, because in a unionized workplace, where things are normal things you can take to a grievance process and arbitration. I'm not talking about like Title Nine stuff, talking about general things that happen at workplace right. There were specific clauses where I noticed that Columbia was like, this specific incident cannot be taken to arbitration. And when I saw that, it was like, Oh, my God, like, is actually much tougher on the grievance and arbitration when it comes to Ettore intimidating workplace conduct or harmful workplace conduct by employers, supervisors. So that's, that's something for example, that I see as a difference. But I think it's still a very similar situation and you could point to specific things where we have differences, but in general, we're facing two very stubborn universities who have the ability to pay workers better, both that have been under scrutiny over their abusive and toxic workplace cultures and educational culture is based on you know, essentially, you know, sweeping things under things under the rug, or, you know, hiding, you know, abusive behavior that's going on for decades. Faculty members, departments, you know, we're dealing with very similar cultures and workplaces. And, therefore, you know, I think we have much more in common than we have apart.
Um, it's my last question would just be if there's anything else that is important for like a Columbia readership to know about the Harvard strike as it begins.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if this begins tomorrow morning, you know, we're excited. We're part of this UAW higher ed family on strike fighting for our rights, fighting for living wage fighting for all the things that unions potentially expect to have in the contracts and these universities have decided to read lines for them for some reason. And, you know, we're growing our power together, and we started with others. We're gonna keep going forward together, and we hope to win Well, thank you for talking with me. Yep. Have a good day.
