Agenda Summary
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In support of Harvard Academic Workers.
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Official Text
WHEREAS: Education, research, and academic inquiry are valued intimately connected to the lives, careers, and passions of Somervillians, and
WHEREAS: The City of Somerville continually recognizes the importance of labor unions to workplace and economic justice; and
WHEREAS: Harvard University employs many residents of Somerville and has important control over their living and working conditions; and
WHEREAS: Harvard University’s practice of short-term contracts for many academic researchers generates substantial artificial precarity for these employees and for the Somerville economy; and
WHEREAS: Harvard University’s practice of time capping non-tenure track teaching faculty encourages artificial turnover among Somerville residents; and
WHEREAS: Nearly 2600 Harvard employees represented by the Harvard Academic Workers (HAW) have been in good faith bargaining for fair contracts for 22 months; and
WHEREAS: These employees have faced an outsized burden of federal government attacks on higher education, experiencing extensive layoffs, threats to visa status, and increased workload; and
WHEREAS: These unions have taken active steps towards fighting federal attacks on higher education while also bargaining for fair treatment by their employer; and
WHEREAS: Harvard University administration is taking advantage of Trump’s anti-worker National Labor Relations Board to attempt to strip union protections from academic laborers through misclassification, refusing to recognize the employee status of many researchers, and adopting expansive interpretations of supervisory status in labor law; and
WHEREAS: This council has previously passed resolutions supporting the rights of HAW’s sister union Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU) who are facing similar attacks and slow negotiations from Harvard’s administration; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED: That the City Council go on the record ur...
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