Harvard Dining Workers Rally at Smith Center, Warn of Strike as Contract Talks Drag On

More than 100 Harvard University Dining Services workers rallied outside the Smith Campus Center on Wednesday to demand higher wages, cheaper health care, and more stable year-round employment, as contract negotiations with the University remain unresolved.

The rally was organized by UNITE HERE Local 26, the union representing hospitality workers across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including dining staff at Harvard. It followed a teach-in at First Parish Church, where more than 200 people gathered to hear union leaders lay out the state of bargaining and make a case for student support.

Harvard and Local 26 have held seven bargaining sessions since talks opened in March, and dining workers have been without a contract since the last agreement expired on June 19. Wages, the medical plan, layoff and recall procedures, and a union proposal on “sustainable jobs and floaters” are among the articles still unresolved, according to bargaining summaries the University has posted online.

Local 26 communications director Seth Ogilvie said Harvard’s offers have left its dining workers behind those at neighboring institutions.

“We think that the wealthiest university in the world should be able to pay their employees at least as much as the universities down the street,” Ogilvie said.

Workers said health care costs have become as pressing an issue as wages. Anabela Pappas, a pantry steward, said HUDS employees already pay more for coverage than dining workers elsewhere in the city, and that the University’s latest proposal would push their costs higher.

“They want us to pay more for our health care than we’ve ever paid before, and we’re already paying more than we’ve ever paid before,” Pappas said. “It’s extremely expensive, and we pay more than any other university in Boston for healthcare.”

Aaron Duckett, a HUDS truck driver who has sat on the union’s negotiating committees since 2001, said Harvard has let a longstanding commitment to part-time workers erode. Employees scheduled for 16 hours a week remain technically eligible for medical benefits, he argued, but can no longer afford the premiums.

“There was a promise that 16-hour employees could get medical benefits. At one time, they could afford the medical benefits,” Duckett said. “We’re at the point where, at 16-hour employees, they can’t afford to have the medical. So that is a promise that’s not being fulfilled.”

“We are constantly disrespected,” he added. “The University is always trying not to fulfill its promises.”

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton pointed to the University’s website on the status of negotiations with Local 26, which states that service workers bring “enormous value, skill, and commitment to serving the campus community.”

“As negotiations over a new union contract proceed, we are committed to addressing the concerns that have been raised and will continue to provide information, resources, and guidance as the collective bargaining process advances,” it adds.

The University has also said its offer amounts to a total compensation package competitive with the Greater Boston food service market, and that it is seeking an agreement that is “sustainable over time.”

Union members have made student backing a central part of their strategy — and some undergraduates have already signed on. Sean B. Merrill ’30 said he showed up because he thinks the pay gap should matter to students who eat in Harvard’s dining halls every day.

“Our HUDS workers are some of the worst-paid workers in the state of Massachusetts,” Merill said. “I really thought students should care about that, so that Harvard can pay them a living wage.”

Ogilvie said dining workers are asking students to recognize how much of their daily experience runs through the dining halls.

“The thing that makes Harvard Harvard is being in those halls, being in Houses, and our members are the ones that help make that possible,” Ogilvie said. “We’re hoping that the students will step up and join us in supporting those people that make their Harvard experience so wonderful and will receive compensation on par with other universities in town.”

Merrill said he hoped enough student pressure could spare workers a walkout altogether.

“Hopefully we can get student support before a strike occurs, so that they don’t have to miss out on a paycheck, and students don’t have to deal with complications relating to food,” he said. “But we can only do it together.”

Pappas, who struck in 2016, said she is prepared to do it again — but not eagerly.

“It’s scary. We don’t want to do it because we know how much students suffered when that happened,” Pappas said. “But we have no choice. We’re willing to do what we have to do, and we will do it.”

“They’re like our kids, our brothers and sisters. They mean the world to us, and we don’t want to. But we have to fight a dirty battle to be able to survive,” she added.

—Staff writer José Luis Ortega Castro can be reached at [email protected].