
Rachel Sandalow-Ash is a student at Harvard Law School and a member of the Labor and Employment Lab.
Today, the Harvard Graduate Students Union – United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW) will begin contract negotiations with the Harvard administration. Graduate student workers at Harvard voted to form a union this past April. In advance of negotiations, the union developed and a set of bargaining goals which will form the basis for negotiations with the university. These goals include higher pay; affordable and comprehensive healthcare; stronger protections against discrimination and sexual harassment; increased support for graduate workers with children; and student debt relief. HGSU-UAW members and supporters will gather from 11:30am – 1:00pm in Harvard Yard for a rally to celebrate the start of bargaining and advocate for a strong contract.
In related news, graduate student workers at Tufts, who are represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509, reached their first tentative contract with the university administration. Under this contract, graduate workers will receive 12 to 19 percent raises as well as 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
Striking musicians represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local 10-2018 have reached a tentative contract agreement with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As previously covered in OnLabor, the musicians went on strike to protest management’s plans to cut guaranteed work time and reduce full-time positions.
Todd N. Tucker, a political scientist and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, writes in Vox that “labor is a foreign policy issue.” He proposes “a new Worker Power Agreement [that] would function similarly to the Paris climate deal” in which “nations would commit to target increases in the union density rate in the same way they target inflation rates or carbon emissions.” The countries that would sign such an agreement would have flexibility to determine “the exact mix of laws and practices” that would enable them to achieve their union density goals. Under Tucker’s proposed agreement, unions would be authorized to launch arbitration claims against governments or companies that are “frustrating the national target” for union density rates.
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August 22
Musk and X move to settle a $500 million severance case; the Ninth Circuit stays an order postponing Temporary Protection Status terminations for migrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal; the Sixth Circuit clarifies that an FMLA “estimate” doesn’t hard-cap unforeseeable intermittent leave.
August 21
FLRA eliminates ALJs; OPM axes gender-affirming care; H-2A farmworkers lose wage suit.
August 20
5th Circuit upholds injunctions based on challenges to NLRB constitutionality; Illinois to counteract federal changes to wage and hour, health and safety laws.
August 19
Amazon’s NLRA violations, the end of the Air Canada strike, and a court finds no unconstitutional taking in reducing pension benefits
August 18
Labor groups sue local Washington officials; the NYC Council seeks to override mayoral veto; and an NLRB official rejects state adjudication efforts.
August 17
The Canadian government ends a national flight attendants’ strike, and Illinois enacts laws preserving federal worker protections.