Harvard\u2019s decision comes just days after the University threatened to lay off dining and custodial workers without pay, and follows a week of sustained student outcry.<\/i><\/p>\n
Cambridge, MA \u2014 Last week, Harvard University threatened to lay off subcontracted workers without pay during the COVID-19 crisis. Today, Harvard reversed course and committed to paying the University\u2019s workers,\u00a0including contract dining and custodial employees,\u00a0through the end of the semester.<\/p>\n
Harvard promised about a week ago to pay workers directly employed by the University for at least 30 days. But many of the workers who keep Harvard running, including dining, catering, custodial, and gym staff, are subcontractors, and Harvard had previously refused to guarantee pay to most subcontracted campus workers . Last week, students led by the Labor and Employment Action Project (LEAP) at Harvard Law School launched a petition<\/a> that gathered over 7,000 signatures, demanding that the University pay all campus workers until the end of the semester, arguing that the prior policy left too many workers behind. This morning, LEAP announced a \u201ccall-in\u201d demanding that Harvard University agree to pay all campus workers who the University has threatened to lay off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers estimate that over a hundred students called or emailed University officials in just two hours.<\/p>\n \u201cThe woman who cleans the dorm that I live in was there to welcome me the very first day that I moved in two years ago. Fast forward and when I couldn\u2019t go home for Thanksgiving she invited me to spend it with her own family. She has been the single most consistent source of genuine love, wisdom, and support for me at this school, and that isn\u2019t an unusual relationship for many minority students in particular to have with the custodial and dining workers at Harvard,\u201d said Erica Taicz-Bland\u00f3n, a second-year student at Harvard Law School. \u201cThese workers, who are largely Black, Brown, and female, are no less an essential part of our campus community as the professors and administrators, who are largely white and male. We were proud to fight alongside them for the recognition and compensation they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n Harvard\u2019s announcement<\/a> today did not specifically mention subcontracted workers at campus gyms, only contract employees in dining, custodial, and security roles. However, Harvard\u2019s Wage and Benefits Parity Policy<\/a> requires all subcontracted vendor employees to receive wages \u201cequal to those paid to Harvard employees in the corresponding service sector,\u201d as well as the \u201csame benefits and paid time off as Harvard employees in the corresponding service sector.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHarvard\u2019s endowment was over $40 billion last year. We can afford to do right by the workers who make our community run,\u201d said Sejal Singh, a third-year law student. \u201cThat means paid leave through the COVID-19 crisis for every worker<\/i>, and not just for 30 days \u2014 we know the crisis may last a lot longer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur communities must come together to support one another through this crisis,\u201d said Jon Levitan, a first-year law student. \u201cWe\u2019re happy that Harvard has done the right thing \u2013 now it\u2019s on every university around the country to follow suit and support workers who care for these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n If you are a subcontracted worker at Harvard or know of Harvard workers not included in this policy update, please get in touch at labor@mail.law.harvard.edu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Harvard\u2019s decision comes just days after the University threatened to lay off dining and custodial workers without pay, and follows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1701,"featured_media":304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/files\/2020\/03\/Harvard-pay-all-your-workers-2.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5BZ9A-4T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/leap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}