Drivers Could Face Overtime Cuts

A week after the end of the trial 24-hour shuttle schedule, shuttle drivers say they may face overtime pay cuts on Sundays as their union renegotiates a contract with the University.

Gabriel Pognon, shuttle driver on the Harvard Yard to Currier House route, said the University is considering reducing overtime pay on Sundays from double time to time and a half.

“People aren’t happy about that,” Pognon said.

A new contract for shuttle drivers proposed by the University was rejected by union members, according to Jean D. Lafantant, a shuttle driver on the Harvard Yard to Harvard Business School route.

Lafantant said the proposed contract—in addition to the overtime wage cuts—would scale back the annual raise for drivers from this year’s four percent to two percent next year and would call for the union to provide drivers’ health care instead of Harvard.

“We can’t afford to take a two-percent raise. The rent is going up and life is difficult now,” Lafantant said.

The University said that it is in negotiations with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 877, the union which represents the shuttle drivers and mechanics, but that no agreement has been reached.

“We are still in negotiations with the union and as such, no changes have been made to the current union contract,” University spokesperson Joe Wrinn wrote in an e-mail. “We have a policy of not commenting on specific proposals publicly in the midst of negotiations.”

Wrinn declined to comment on whether the union rejected the University’s proposal.

Allen McWade, Local 877’s business manager, confirmed that the negotiations are ongoing and said that they will hopefully conclude within the next two to three weeks.

“We are negotiating shift differentials and overtime compensation,” McWade said.

Under the current contract night-time drivers receive a shift differential—a premium pay for working a non-day shift—and Sunday drivers receive overtime if they have worked more than 40 hours during the week.

McWade and Wrinn would not comment on any changes to drivers’ health care policies.

But Jack Garvey, another driver on the Currier route, said he viewed health care as the most important aspect of a new contract.

“The health insurance is the sticking point,” Garvey said. “It needs to be ironed out.”

With the 24-hour shuttle schedule set to resume temporarily on May 3 for reading period, the new contract, if accepted, could take effect just as shuttle activity peaks for the semester.

Progressive Student Labor Movement member Emma S. Mackinnon ’05, who is also a Crimson editor, said Harvard should not forget about its workers as it takes on large projects.

“The University is seeing budget cutbacks but is also on a project of expansion, and to finance that through benefit and wage cuts to its lowest paid workers is just unacceptable,” Mackinnon said.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.