CAMBRIDGE, MA — Student workers at Harvard University made history today, voting in favor of ratifying their first union contract. The one-year contract agreement with the university will improve pay and benefits for over 4,000 student workers, and guarantee health and safety protections in the midst of a pandemic. The contract strengthens protections for student workers against discrimination and harassment, including racial discrimination and sexual harassment, and includes new provisions aimed at increasing job security for international student workers. The contract is a major victory not only for the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW), which is the largest private-sector student ...
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Pattern bargaining started as a collective bargaining strategy in which unionized workers across an industry or sector attempt to bargain uniform standards in their contracts. UAW autoworkers started this practice right after World War II, and by 1955, the UAW contracts with the major automakers set the same pattern wages and had the same contract expiration date. Pattern bargaining serves an important purpose: it levels the playing field so companies compete based on the quality of their products or services not how much they pay (or don’t pay) their workers. This was the vision of Walter Reuther, who wanted to ...
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