Security Guards Worried About Prospect of Outsourcing

Harvard has indicated in ongoing negotiations that it plans to outsource all remaining in-house security guard positions, union leaders say.

While University administrators insist that no employees will be fired, they have said they will not continue to hire a mixture of in-house and outsourced security guards.

If their jobs are subcontracted out, it is likely that in-house security guards who want to stay at Harvard will have to change to other jobs in the University.

In response, their union—Harvard University Security, Parking and Museum Guards Union (HUSPMGU)—has organized a letter-writing campaign to top Harvard administrators, including University President Lawrence H. Summers.

And as e-mails speculating on the fate of the guards circulated on House open lists, the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) held a rally that attracted a small but enthusiastic crowd of students and union members to the front of the Holyoke Center on Monday afternoon to protest the outsourcing of those jobs.

“What’s disgusting?” bellowed a student behind the megaphone.

“Union-busting!” responded the assembled crowd.

With the contracts of the security guards’ union set to expire next Tuesday and the possible outsourcing of those security positions, much is on the table for the 17 guards Harvard employs directly, who patrol the Yard and Kirkland and Mather Houses.

The Negotiations

According to Danny Meagher, vice-president of HUSPMGU, the University first indicated its outsourcing plans in early June—just as the final waves of students left Cambridge.

“It was my initial understanding that the University meant to end those 17 jobs,” says Meagher. “We were told that the jobs were going to end.”

And though Harvard has not explicitly backed away from those plans, union leaders say recent negotiations have given them renewed hope.

HUSPMGU President Steve McCombe, who is also a Yard security guard, said the public outpouring of support has helped the guards.

“At the beginning, I was led to believe that we would be out of here on July 1,” he says, “but since then there’s been a lot of support and a lot of people have come forward.”

As the current HUSPMGU contract nears expiration, University administrators are candid about their desire to outsource. Deputy Director of Labor and Employee Relations James LaBua says the current mix of in-house and contract security guards does not represent the best way to provide security for the school community.

“Any major employer would look at this and say there seems to be some merit in unifying all those forces,” says LaBua, adding that the employment of guards from different institutions means various logistical difficulties for the school. “We are in the process of looking to unify the existing security guard force.”

Such a security force would likely be composed wholly of guards from Harvard’s current subcontractor, Security Services Incorporated (SSI).

But according to LaBua, outsourcing will not mean lost jobs for security guards.

“No [in-house] security guard will be laid off,” he says.

But he did not address what would happen to the guards absent their positions. And Marilyn D. Touborg, director of communications for Harvard’s Office of Human Resources, declined to comment on whether security guards that opt to continue at the University will be forced to switch jobs.

But she says if they were to change jobs, there might be room for them as parking guards—a possibility that would keep them in their current union.

“One of the possibilities...is that there are some positions that will be available in that same union in the parking department,” she says. “And there may be the possibility of relocation there.”

As the negotiations—which began in April—continue, both sides say they remain optimistic that a solution can be reached.

Meagher also says he was surprised and pleased at the University’s recent overtures.

“Instead of looking at it in terms of what they can do, they’re looking at it in terms of what is the right thing to do,” he says.

Harvard Reacts

Concerns over the security guards’ fate prompted an outpouring of support from various constituents of the Harvard community.

Though most undergraduates have left for summer, the PSLM still planned and staged its Monday rally.

“We’re trying to show our support for Harvard’s security guards,” says PSLM member Daniel DiMaggio ’04. “We’re sick and tired of Harvard attacking its unions and its workforce.”

Members of other unions were also present at the rally, citing their solidarity with HUSPMGU.

“It’s time to recognize the dignity of work and the needs of [Harvard’s] workers,” said says Potter, a Harvard Law School secretary and member of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW).

HUSPMGU leaders say they have received dozens of letters in support of the security guards.

Students in the Houses also expressed concern for the guards that patrol their grounds.

“[Security Guard William Duarte] has always been a member of the Mather community,” says David Rosenblatt ’02-’03, who was present at the rally. “Just in terms of feeling safe, it’s a very different thing to have someone who knows everything and what’s going on, rather than having people who are probably working three jobs.”

Squeeze Play

The controversy comes as the number of in-house security guards at Harvard has dwindled from a peak of 122 in the late 1980s to the mere 17 today.

As of 2001, the University employed 174 outsourced security guards.

Harvard has been averse to keeping its security guards in-house, citing consistent financial losses in its guards unit. It has made persistent efforts to outsource those guards, offering severance packages to encourage guards to retire from University service, in addition to filling vacancies with outsourced guards.

“The University has announced it does not believe it can make the guards a viable financial Unit and plans to eventually end the in-house uniformed guard operation,” said the final report of the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Practices (HCECP), which was released in December 2001.

The committee was convened in May 2001 by then-University President Neil L. Rudenstine in response to the PSLM living wage sit-in of Mass. Hall that year.

Security guards have said this policy of trying to eliminate their unit has made them constantly wary of the University. Working for an employer that wants to be rid of them results in tough working conditions, they say.

While its current four-year contract is up on July 1, HUSPMGU wages were renegotiated last May in line with HCECP recommendations, increasing the minimum wage paid to security guards from $8.75 an hour to $12.25 an hour. Entry-level wages rose further last July, to $12.70. Though entry-level salaries were raised dramatically, all of the in-house security guards earned $11.97 before the renegotiation, more than the $10.68 minimum-wage named by the report.

This commitment has only served to increase costs in the already cash-strapped guards department, as has the University’s adoption of a Wage and Benefits Parity Policy, promising to compensate outsourced employees as the same level as in-house employees.

With a parity wage and benefits policy, unions can negotiate higher pay and benefits and do not have to fear that outside contractors will be able to undercut them simply by paying their employees lower compensation, the HCECP report said.

But if the University eliminated its in-house security guards entirely, outsourcing would present an opportunity to diminish guard compensation. With no in-house security guards remaining, outsourced guard wages would have to be comparable to the wages of an in-house job category performing the same or similar work.

In such a scenario, security guard wages could be reduced if they were matched up to certain in-house positions like the parking and museum guards, whose entry-level salary is only $11.35, pending the outcome of these negotiations.

Unlike security guards, parking and museum guards have seen a much smaller threat of outsourcing in recent years.

The Source of Problems

Nonetheless, the specter of outsourcing has cast a shadow over some University positions in recent years, and it has weighed heavily on the minds of many employees.

In the HCECP report, the committee urged Harvard not to employ outsourcing as a tool to weaken working conditions.

“Harvard should not use outsourcing to undermine its obligations to be a good employer and to bargain in good faith with its unionized employees,” the report said. “Outsourcing should not be used to lower wages and weaken the unions representing Harvard’s employees.”

The University said it was adopting its parity policy to that end.

But outsourcing continues to be one of the most common complaints that unions and employees level against the University. Union leaders and student activists charge that the University continues to lower its labor standards by contracting out its work despite its commitment to avoid such tactics.

“Harvard is supposed to be curtailing this type of behavior,” Potter says. “It’s clear that Harvard is still attacking unions through outsourcing.”

And the current dispute with the security guards evidences the University’s continuing use of this practice, confirming workers’ fears that Harvard is acting like a cost-cutting corporation, says Jeff W. Booth, a HUCTW member and library employee.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg at Harvard—it’s not just the security guards,” he said. “The guards are at the cutting edge of what Harvard is trying to do to all its workers.”

For security, the issue is particularly acute, according to Meagher. He said campus safety depends on having familiar, steadily-employed guards.

“Harvard needs to have in-house security guards,” Meagher said. “The nature of the outsourced workers is that they come and go.”

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.