HUCTW Issues Open Letter

Just one week after the University and the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) released a joint statement on casual labor, HUCTW has issued its own open letter on the subject, calling casual labor a "critical issue for this great institution."

The letter--which was sent to HUCTW members this week and will be sent to key Harvard administrators next week--comes at a time when HUCTW is negotiating with the University to develop measures to stop abuse of the casual payroll.

"There are discussions going on about solutions to these kinds of problems, which we would characterize as quite hopeful at this point," said HUCTW Director Bill Jaeger. "But there may need to be a certain amount of community pressure to really make sure all the right things happen here."

Casual laborers are Harvard employees who work for fewer than 17.5 hours per week or for fewer than three months, and are therefore not entitled to health benefits, pensions or wages as high as those of other workers.

The University acknowledged in the joint statement with HUCTW last week that it has violated its own rules regarding the workers by employing some casual workers for more than the maximum allowable time.

And in HUCTW's statement, the union called upon members of the Harvard community to report such abuses.

"Some members of the Harvard community are being treated unfairly," said the letter, which urged people to report casual labor abuses to the union. "At least a small number of those are facing real economic hardship. We can not look the other way without perpetuating the problem of working poverty."

While the University has agreed to address the issue of casual labor in principle, Jaeger said it has not yet made firm commitments as to how it will compel its decentralized divisions to follow its casual employment rules.

In particular, Jaeger said, the University has not yet agreed to a system for compensating casual laborers who have worked more than the maximum number of hours in the past. And it has not developed a University-wide oversight system to insure that the problem does not occur in the future.

"The University basically continues to violate the contract that it signed with the union, by continuing to employ people on a part-time payroll at full-time levels, or for extended periods of time," added Will W. Erickson '00-'01, a member of Harvard's Living Wage Campaign and an employee of HUCTW.

Jaeger said this week's statement is intended to raise awareness and rouse support for the union's efforts in a fuller way than last week's statement could.

"We had a longer, fuller story we wanted to tell about all the philosophical angles and moral implications of this issue," Jaeger said.

The University statement, he added, was negotiated under conditions that constrained its content.

"The text was negotiated carefully, word-by-word, and I think that had a cautious tone," he said. "It could only provide as much information as the union and University could agree on the wording of."

Merry D. Touborg, the university spokesperson for labor issues, said she had not yet seen a copy of the HUCTW letter and could not comment on it.