Keith Rosenthal: Workers Score a Victory at Harvard

The contract is considered a major victory by the guards who only recently voted to join SEUI in December of 2006, and have been negotiating since then. The new contract includes starting wages of $14.50 ($2 more than the current starting wage), grievance procedures, elected union stewards, and concessions on paid-time-off, seniority, and scheduling.

This victory is all the more significant given the history of the guards' fight with Harvard. Until 2004, the guards were all Harvard employees organized in the Harvard University Security, Parking, and Museum Guards Union. However, that was the year in which Harvard decided that in order to cut costs, it would have to outsource the guards to a private contractor, AlliedBarton, where unionization was prohibited.

Between 2004 and the end of 2006, the guards had to fight a long battle to win the right to unionize again--this time under AlliedBarton. Now, with their new union and contract, they've shown Harvard that they will not take any attacks lying down.

But it wasn't an easy victory. At the outset of the struggle, many guards were afraid of actively getting involved. Deanna Ross, a night-shift security guard who became a leader in the course of the struggle, noted that when she first got involved there were a lot of rumors going around. She was told that AlliedBarton was going to lose its account and that all the guards would be fired.

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