Latest / The Real News Podcast / Over 4,000 UAW Members on Strike at Harvard University

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Over 4,000 UAW Members on Strike at Harvard University · The Real News Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Ah I Got work.
0:05
Speaker 2: Oh right. Welcome every one to Working People, a podcast
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Speaker 2: about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working
0:13
Speaker 2: class today. Working People is a proud member of the
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Speaker 2: Labor Radio Podcast Network and has brought to you in
0:19
Speaker 2: partnership within These Times magazine and the Real News Network.
0:23
Speaker 2: This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible
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Speaker 2: by the support of listeners like you. My name is
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Speaker 2: Maximilian Alvarez and we've got an important episode today about
0:34
Speaker 2: a strike in Cambridge, Massachusetts that is happening right now
0:38
Speaker 2: and involves over four thousand UAW members at Harvard University now.
0:43
Speaker 2: The strike began at the end of April, and, according
0:46
Speaker 2: to the public announcement which was released by the Harvard
0:49
Speaker 2: Graduate Students Union quote, after fourteen months of contract negotiations
0:54
Speaker 2: and nearly a year without an active contract, over four
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Speaker 2: thousand workers represented by the Harvard Gradraduate Students' Union HGSU
1:02
Speaker 2: UAW Local fifty one eighteen launched a strike of indefinite
1:06
Speaker 2: length on April twenty first. This move follows a strike
1:10
Speaker 2: authorization vote in which seventy nine percent of the union's
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Speaker 2: voting eligible members participated, with ninety six percent voting in favor.
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Speaker 2: Graduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until
1:22
Speaker 2: Harvard's bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the union's
1:26
Speaker 2: key issues. Pay that keeps pace with the rise and
1:30
Speaker 2: cost of living, recourse for harassment and discrimination, support for
1:34
Speaker 2: non citizens students, protections for academic freedom, and fair share
1:39
Speaker 2: fees to equitably distribute the expenses of union representation, among others.
1:45
Speaker 2: The union is also bargaining for improved workplace conditions that
1:49
Speaker 2: allow graduate student workers to contribute to the university's mission
1:53
Speaker 2: without fear of harassment or retaliation. Under the current system,
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Speaker 2: graduate students filing claims of workplace this harassment and discrimination
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Speaker 2: can only seek recourse through internal processes, leaving the university
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Speaker 2: as the sole arbiter of its own conduct. Hgsu UAW
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Speaker 2: has proposed optional grievance processes in which claims can be
2:15
Speaker 2: adjudicated by third party arbitrators selected jointly by the university
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Speaker 2: and the union. Such protections are standard among graduate student
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Speaker 2: worker contracts at comparable institutions like NYU U, Penn MIT,
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Speaker 2: University of California, and Stanford Claire Traweek. A PhD student
2:34
Speaker 2: in Material Science and Mechanical Engineering shared why this process
2:38
Speaker 2: of real recourse is so important for student workers.
2:42
Speaker 3: Quote.
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Speaker 2: When I told my advisor about the ongoing sexual harassment
2:45
Speaker 2: I've been experiencing in lab, he told my accusers I
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Speaker 2: had tried to report them, and then effectively fired me
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Speaker 2: by refusing to sign my advising agreement end quote now.
2:56
Speaker 2: In an email sent to the Harvard community just days
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Speaker 2: before the strike, again, Harvard provosts John F. Manning and
3:02
Speaker 2: Executive vice president Meredith L. Weenick defended the university's position
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Speaker 2: on wages and union security, saying that Harvard's proposal of
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Speaker 2: a ten percent increase for salaried appointments is quote in
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Speaker 2: line with recent agreements, while also rejecting the union's demands
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Speaker 2: to standardize research assistant base salaries and restructure other pay scales.
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Speaker 2: Manning and Weenick also claimed that the union's demand for
3:28
Speaker 2: a third party arbitration process would establish a quote distinct
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Speaker 2: and separate set of non discrimination, harassment, and anti bullying
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Speaker 2: processes for union members, which they say would quote conflict
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Speaker 2: not only with federal regulations for Title nine complaints, but
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Speaker 2: also with the university's policy that members of our community
3:47
Speaker 2: should have access to the same procedures.
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Speaker 1: End quote.
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Speaker 2: All right, So to break down what is happening with
3:52
Speaker 2: the Harvard grad Union strike, what is at stake in
3:55
Speaker 2: this strike.
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Speaker 1: And what comes next.
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Speaker 2: As we always do, We're going to take you straight
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Speaker 2: to the front lines of the struggle so you can
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Speaker 2: hear directly from folks who are at the center of it.
4:05
Speaker 2: And I'm really grateful to be joined on the show
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Speaker 2: today by three guests. Sarah Speller is a fifth year
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Speaker 2: PhD student in the Music Department at Harvard and the
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Speaker 2: president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union. Sarah works as
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Speaker 2: a teaching fellow for the Music Department and the Department
4:19
Speaker 2: for the Studies of Women.
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Speaker 1: Gender, and Sexuality.
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Speaker 2: Zoe Fetter is a seventh year PhD student in the
4:25
Speaker 2: Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School
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Speaker 2: and a research assistant in the Microbiology Department. And Zoe
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Speaker 2: works in a bacterial genetics lab. And Jacob Wolf is
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Speaker 2: a third year PhD student in the Harvard Graduate School
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Speaker 2: of Education who works as a teaching fellow in courses
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Speaker 2: about designing learning experiences. Sarah, Zoe, Jacob, thank you all
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Speaker 2: so much for joining us on the show today.
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Speaker 1: I really really appreciate it. Now.
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Speaker 2: I did my best to give listeners some basic context
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Speaker 2: there in the intro, but I want to start by
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Speaker 2: going around a table and just asking you all to
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Speaker 2: lay this all out in your own words. Why are you,
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Speaker 2: as graduate student workers on strike right now?
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Speaker 1: And what have the past two weeks on strike looked
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Speaker 1: like for you?
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Speaker 4: Hello, Minnie, Sarah, thanks for having me.
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Speaker 3: The way that we've been framing this, and I think
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Speaker 3: it's very very true, is that all we're asking for
5:20
Speaker 3: are adequate pay and adequate protections for all of our workers.
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Speaker 3: You really hit the nail on the head with that summary,
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Speaker 3: So thank you a great job. But I think, among
5:30
Speaker 3: other things, we want our winds to be the floor
5:35
Speaker 3: at Harvard and not the ceiling. So I take specific
5:38
Speaker 3: umbrage with the claim that we are trying to create
5:41
Speaker 3: like a secondary way of making sure that harassment discrimination
5:46
Speaker 3: is dealt with for only us, because what we've said
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Speaker 3: at the table is we want everyone to have access
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Speaker 3: to an arbitration that is neutral, does not rely on
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Speaker 3: the goodwill of the internal process see at Harvard.
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Speaker 4: But as someone who is a teaching.
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Speaker 3: Fellow, and I only make twenty six thousand dollars a
6:07
Speaker 3: year at this point in my degree because of funding
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Speaker 3: schemes that are really you know, Harvard's way of trying
6:16
Speaker 3: to push us through our degrees as fast as possible.
6:20
Speaker 3: I think pay equity is so vital and will make
6:25
Speaker 3: the classroom experience so much better and healthier, because what
6:31
Speaker 3: we have right now are people juggling three four individual
6:35
Speaker 3: classes and dealing with all kinds of different assignments and
6:38
Speaker 3: job work that they have to do within that. Oh
6:41
Speaker 3: and to be clear, the reason why people are juggling
6:43
Speaker 3: so many classes, I myself juggled three different class workloads.
6:46
Speaker 3: I guess you can say this semester because I needed
6:50
Speaker 3: to make money to be able to pay rent in Boston.
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Speaker 4: It's so expensive to live here.
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Speaker 3: So if the teaching fellows were able to feel comfortable
7:00
Speaker 3: in the fact that we can pay rent, we can
7:02
Speaker 3: take care of ourselves, We can take care of our dependents,
7:06
Speaker 3: we can keep ourselves protected on a legal front for
7:10
Speaker 3: our non citizens and international workers by being able to
7:14
Speaker 3: afford or receive.
7:15
Speaker 4: Payment for having immigration lawyers on hand.
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Speaker 3: Like, how much better would the learning environment here be
7:22
Speaker 3: at the richest university in the world.
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Speaker 4: I think they can.
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Speaker 3: Afford to do that, and they should because what we
7:27
Speaker 3: care about is teaching and learning. And then as for
7:30
Speaker 3: like the last few weeks on strike, it's been very difficult.
7:33
Speaker 4: I love my job, but it also has.
7:34
Speaker 3: Been very rewarding, and especially I've been president for about
7:38
Speaker 3: two years, and it's so beautiful seeing people come together
7:42
Speaker 3: from all different corners of the university getting to know
7:45
Speaker 3: each other and like sharing in the camaraderie and solidarity.
7:49
Speaker 5: I love that. That's so true.
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Speaker 6: I've really enjoyed that, especially because I work on the
7:55
Speaker 6: medical school campus and they don't always have the chance
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Speaker 6: to interface with the humanities and a lot of the
8:00
Speaker 6: other sciences who work on the Cambridge campus, so that's
8:03
Speaker 6: been really wonderful for me. I think Sarah did a
8:07
Speaker 6: great job, as she always does, of articulating what we're
8:10
Speaker 6: fighting for. I think from my perspective, I have been
8:15
Speaker 6: aware of and seen firsthand this ever present issue of harassment,
8:22
Speaker 6: the sort of threat of harassment and discrimination in academic
8:27
Speaker 6: spaces without without appropriate tools to protect people. And in
8:35
Speaker 6: my time as a graduate student worker, I've been a
8:38
Speaker 6: part of many different discussions and committees at different forms
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Speaker 6: and levels, and I feel really that our union.
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Speaker 5: Is the first, the first organization that I've been.
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Speaker 6: A part of where we've made material progress and protecting
8:55
Speaker 6: people from the day to day harassment discrimination that they experience.
9:00
Speaker 6: And so one of the big motivations for me in
9:03
Speaker 6: joining the strike is to address this issue of harassment
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Speaker 6: and discrimination that.
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Speaker 5: Everyone everyone around me knows is a problem and wants
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Speaker 5: to change.
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Speaker 6: Ultimately, our union, in our contract, I've found have been
9:17
Speaker 6: the most effective tools. So I'm putting all of my
9:21
Speaker 6: energy into strengthening those tools because I've seen through experience
9:25
Speaker 6: that's the fastest and most effective way for me to
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Speaker 6: help protect my coworkers from harassment discrimination.
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Speaker 7: I agree wholeheartedly with both what Sarah and Zoe have
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Speaker 7: shared already. I think to add one thing that has
9:40
Speaker 7: been on my mind as someone who is relatively newer
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Speaker 7: at Harvard and who is just like learning the ropes
9:49
Speaker 7: in some ways.
9:50
Speaker 8: Of union organizing in an academic space.
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Speaker 7: I kind of tapped into this process as our union
9:56
Speaker 7: began bargaining, which has now been like fifteen months ago,
10:00
Speaker 7: so it's unfortunately been a lot of time to learn
10:03
Speaker 7: the ropes. But as I've tapped into this union organizing
10:07
Speaker 7: and been working to connect with rank and file members
10:11
Speaker 7: at the School of Education, where I primarily do my
10:15
Speaker 7: work and research. I've just learned how much misinformation there
10:19
Speaker 7: is about the union across our campus and how hard
10:23
Speaker 7: it is to correct that misinformation when the work structures
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Speaker 7: at Harvard are so intentionally, in my opinion, complicated. Everything
10:31
Speaker 7: across all of these various schools and departments functions differently.
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Speaker 7: People have like different kinds of jobs at the university
10:38
Speaker 7: tries to treat differently. People often don't know if they're
10:41
Speaker 7: eligible for union membership, if their work is protected by
10:44
Speaker 7: the union. When people experience instances of like some kind
10:49
Speaker 7: of contract violation, whether that be harassment or even like
10:54
Speaker 7: not receiving the wages that they're supposed to be receiving,
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Speaker 7: they often don't know that they have like union support
11:01
Speaker 7: because Harvard has intentionally made it so difficult to organize
11:05
Speaker 7: as a union. My understanding is that that's kind of
11:07
Speaker 7: the case across Higher Ed, like many Higher Ed institutions
11:11
Speaker 7: have engaged in intentional union busting through these kinds of
11:14
Speaker 7: opaque structures that make it hard for people to know
11:17
Speaker 7: what their rights are. And so the strike has really
11:20
Speaker 7: energized me around our proposals for union security, so things
11:25
Speaker 7: like making it such that all graduate students who are
11:30
Speaker 7: eligible for union membership would have to make an intentional
11:33
Speaker 7: decision either to join the union or to pay reduced
11:37
Speaker 7: fair share fee that would still contribute to the work
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Speaker 7: that the union still performs for all students through bargaining
11:44
Speaker 7: and through contract enforcement.
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Speaker 8: And so that though like maybe not.
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Speaker 7: The sexiest issue, has become very driving for me as
11:55
Speaker 7: I've been out and about striking, and I mean the
11:57
Speaker 7: wages part is still so important to Again, everyone in
12:02
Speaker 7: across the university has different forms of compensation. It's totally
12:06
Speaker 7: unfair that folks who are more advanced in their programs
12:10
Speaker 7: are making so much less than folks who are earlier
12:13
Speaker 7: in their programs. But even me, someone who's earlier in
12:17
Speaker 7: my program, I'm still very concerned about our wages not
12:20
Speaker 7: keeping up with inflation. Like my rent is going up
12:24
Speaker 7: three point twenty five percent this coming year because there's
12:26
Speaker 7: no rint control in the Boston area in Massachusetts, and
12:30
Speaker 7: that's less than Harvard has proposed in wage increases over
12:34
Speaker 7: the next four years, which means I'm taking home a
12:38
Speaker 7: pay cut, like right now, our contract is a pay cut,
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Speaker 7: and that is not only is it unacceptable, it's unlivable.
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Speaker 8: We are like.
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Speaker 7: When we say we're fighting for a living wage, it
12:47
Speaker 7: is not a euphemism.
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Speaker 2: Let me just pick up on that and like, let's
12:52
Speaker 2: go just a little bit deeper on like these issues
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Speaker 2: that are so central and so important to y'all and
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Speaker 2: your membership that you would, you know, go on strike
13:02
Speaker 2: four thousand strong to get them right, because I think
13:06
Speaker 2: there's a big, you know, perception disconnect here which I've
13:09
Speaker 2: I've tried to address with this show over the course
13:13
Speaker 2: of many years to get people to understand just because
13:16
Speaker 2: you know that Harvard is, as as Sarah said, the
13:20
Speaker 2: richest higher ed institution in the world, and it's got
13:23
Speaker 2: this massive endowment, venerable reputation, YadA, YadA, YadA, that does
13:28
Speaker 2: not mean that the like grad student workers who are
13:31
Speaker 2: teaching a lot of the classes are even able to
13:34
Speaker 2: pay their own damn rent, right, And like this is
13:37
Speaker 2: the case you know, in higher ed institutions across the country.
13:40
Speaker 2: I say that as a former grad student who was
13:43
Speaker 2: living below the poverty line, you know, like it's just
13:45
Speaker 2: par for the course, and we're always told, well, it's
13:48
Speaker 2: not a real job. You're getting an education, the pay
13:52
Speaker 2: and the work are you know, like are disconnected in
13:54
Speaker 2: this weird way, and you know that's just not the case.
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Speaker 1: Like, no, we're workers.
13:58
Speaker 2: We need to make a living, we need to keep
14:00
Speaker 2: a roof over our head, and you know, like we
14:03
Speaker 2: have an employer employee relationship with the university telling us
14:07
Speaker 2: like what labor to do to get our paycheck.
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Speaker 3: Right.
14:10
Speaker 2: So, anyway, like I wanted to ask if you guys
14:12
Speaker 2: could just flesh out a little more for folks who
14:15
Speaker 2: are not part of a higher ed community who are
14:18
Speaker 2: hearing about this story, listening to this interview right now,
14:21
Speaker 2: and they're wondering, like, you know, like what what is
14:23
Speaker 2: grad student pay and like you know, cost of living
14:26
Speaker 2: for a grad student at Harvard, and why is this
14:30
Speaker 2: kind of pay proposal so central to this strike? And
14:34
Speaker 2: also like the arbitration process, right, because that may seem
14:40
Speaker 2: small to some, but it is so massive when you're
14:43
Speaker 2: facing harassment from your advisor who holds your future career
14:48
Speaker 2: in their.
14:48
Speaker 1: Hands, right, And you would think that an.
14:50
Speaker 2: Institution like Harvard, whose former president Larry Summers was just
14:54
Speaker 2: implicated in the Epstein files, would be a little more
14:57
Speaker 2: sensitive to this kind of thing.
14:59
Speaker 1: So can you can you guys.
15:00
Speaker 2: Just talk a little more about why these are so
15:03
Speaker 2: central to the struggle, to the point that they would
15:06
Speaker 2: even lead your membership to strike over them.
15:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, great question.
15:11
Speaker 3: I'll tackle the myth of all of us being like
15:15
Speaker 3: twenty five year old white men in grad school first.
15:19
Speaker 4: I think this is something I hear all the time.
15:23
Speaker 3: And for context, I'm first gin low income to college.
15:28
Speaker 3: I have been at fancy private schools the whole time,
15:30
Speaker 3: but like I have never known well. And it is
15:34
Speaker 3: like through the mercy of fellowships and scholarships that I
15:38
Speaker 3: got where I am today, and in the addition of luck.
15:42
Speaker 3: But I think one of the things that people often
15:46
Speaker 3: get wrong to your point is this idea that all
15:50
Speaker 3: of us are doing this simply because we need something
15:53
Speaker 3: to do and we don't want to work. This is
15:55
Speaker 3: a job I am exclusively responsible for myself. I do
15:59
Speaker 3: not have anything to fall back on. I happen to
16:01
Speaker 3: be very very interested in a very niche thing, and
16:04
Speaker 3: so the best job for me right now is teaching
16:08
Speaker 3: and working towards a PhD at this institution. If I
16:12
Speaker 3: don't do a good job teaching my students, like what
16:15
Speaker 3: worth is their Harvard degrees. And something that people are
16:20
Speaker 3: often surprised to hear is that like students at institutions
16:24
Speaker 3: like this have sections or what we call sections for
16:27
Speaker 3: all of their classes that sort of replace the idea
16:31
Speaker 3: of a study group. So they have their lecture or
16:34
Speaker 3: they have their meeting, and then they also have a
16:36
Speaker 3: time where they meet once or twice a week with
16:39
Speaker 3: someone who is a graduate student or some sort of
16:42
Speaker 3: non tenured teaching labor and they talk through everything. So
16:46
Speaker 3: we have to know what they are learning. We have
16:49
Speaker 3: to be able to guide them through complex terms. We
16:52
Speaker 3: grade their papers. We do all of these things.
16:55
Speaker 4: In a way that is akin to being a teacher.
17:00
Speaker 3: Like we are teachers, right, we're also researchers in laboratories.
17:04
Speaker 3: Like the laboratories don't function without us, and a lot
17:07
Speaker 3: of us are like adults. I think is the other
17:10
Speaker 3: This sounds crazy to say, but like all of the
17:13
Speaker 3: people that I know are not dependent on family or
17:21
Speaker 3: anyone else like this is our nine to five often
17:26
Speaker 3: are eight to eight, and a lot of us have kids,
17:30
Speaker 3: a lot of us have dependents, a lot of us
17:32
Speaker 3: are sending money back home to various places, and we
17:36
Speaker 3: live in precarious circumstances. So like being an academic worker,
17:41
Speaker 3: being an office worker, being like a sit down job
17:44
Speaker 3: worker is not any different in the reality of precariousness
17:49
Speaker 3: than any other job that we might line up with
17:53
Speaker 3: being in a union. And that's how union power in
17:57
Speaker 3: America gets dissolved before it can even grow, is that
18:00
Speaker 3: we're told like, well, your job is easy, or your
18:04
Speaker 3: job is like not a real job. Like the number
18:07
Speaker 3: of times I've heard that from people who are literally
18:09
Speaker 3: like accountants, and it's like, your job is a real job,
18:13
Speaker 3: and you deserve rights. And I think that is really
18:15
Speaker 3: what our strike is about in a big way, is
18:19
Speaker 3: reminding Harvard, reminding each other, reminding everyone that like, these
18:23
Speaker 3: are real jobs, and we can't subsist on half of
18:29
Speaker 3: the money that it takes to live and work in
18:34
Speaker 3: Boston and also be expected to be doing novel research
18:39
Speaker 3: and also be expected to be doing other things that
18:43
Speaker 3: like academic people are expected to do and perform in
18:46
Speaker 3: order to get jobs. Like we are juggling so much,
18:51
Speaker 3: and we are in a place of privilege certainly, but
18:54
Speaker 3: like MIT is paying their researchers and teachers more on
18:59
Speaker 3: a fraction of the budget down the road, and so
19:04
Speaker 3: even within the realm of privilege and like fancy names,
19:08
Speaker 3: Harvard is falling behind and they're relying on their name
19:12
Speaker 3: recognition to get them through everything, including what you're talking
19:16
Speaker 3: about with the fact that, like we've had people having
19:18
Speaker 3: to step down due to their associations with.
19:21
Speaker 4: Epstein, they they are not.
19:26
Speaker 3: Talking about this with their students, so that also often
19:29
Speaker 3: falls into the role of teaching. Fellows and mentors like us.
19:35
Speaker 3: They're just choosing to let things go by so they
19:38
Speaker 3: don't have to talk about it and relying on their name,
19:40
Speaker 3: and that is not a way to make your dream
19:44
Speaker 3: come true if you're trying to survive for the next
19:46
Speaker 3: one hundred years like they claim to be, which is
19:48
Speaker 3: why the money in the endowment is untouchable.
19:53
Speaker 6: I love that so much of that really resonated with me,
19:56
Speaker 6: especially when you said, Sarah, that we are adults and
20:01
Speaker 6: that that feels silly to say once. This is a
20:06
Speaker 6: second hand story, but one of my coworkers told me
20:10
Speaker 6: they were talking to a faculty member and the faculty
20:12
Speaker 6: member said to them something like along the lines of like, well,
20:17
Speaker 6: when you're an adult, you'll see And what they meant was,
20:20
Speaker 6: when you have a professor job.
20:24
Speaker 5: And it's so.
20:26
Speaker 6: It's so frustrating and so ironic because on the one hand,
20:29
Speaker 6: as PhD students or other kinds of you know, master
20:35
Speaker 6: students or whatever we are, we're expected to be experts
20:39
Speaker 6: in our field, and we're expected to move from consuming
20:43
Speaker 6: knowledge to producing knowledge. But at the same time we
20:46
Speaker 6: are often condescended to and infantilized in a way that's
20:52
Speaker 6: just so so taken for granted that a professor could
20:55
Speaker 6: accidentally say to a thirty two.
20:57
Speaker 5: Year old when you're an adult, you'll.
20:59
Speaker 6: See, yeah, I'm thirty two, and I'm really.
21:07
Speaker 5: I'm lucky.
21:08
Speaker 6: I'm fortunate that I can rely on my family for
21:11
Speaker 6: help in a lot of ways.
21:15
Speaker 5: I'm also in one of.
21:16
Speaker 6: The highest paid tiers. I guess as a research assistant
21:22
Speaker 6: in the natural sciences on the medical school campus. I
21:26
Speaker 6: make about forty nine thousand dollars a year or fifty
21:31
Speaker 6: depending on I guess who you ask and how you
21:33
Speaker 6: count the benefits.
21:35
Speaker 5: But even with that, for really big.
21:39
Speaker 6: Expenses, like we had to move a couple of years ago,
21:42
Speaker 6: and brokers fees were still legal in Massachusetts and we
21:46
Speaker 6: had moving expenses. We had to go to our parents
21:48
Speaker 6: for help, and I'm so grateful and lucky that we
21:51
Speaker 6: were able to do that, but even my generous parents,
21:56
Speaker 6: it wears, you know, on a family to be helping
22:02
Speaker 6: to support their adult children this far into adulthood. And
22:07
Speaker 6: so many of my classmates, you know, so many of
22:09
Speaker 6: my brightest, most hard working classmates don't have those safety networks,
22:14
Speaker 6: and so they're in incredibly precarious positions.
22:20
Speaker 5: And the frustrating thing is that.
22:21
Speaker 4: It's you know, it's not just.
22:27
Speaker 6: Kind of a cruel and undignified position to put your
22:31
Speaker 6: workers in, but also it takes away from the university's
22:36
Speaker 6: larger mission of advancing research and knowledge, because now you
22:40
Speaker 6: have students that have to, you know, sort of rearrange
22:46
Speaker 6: their lives or take on additional work if their program
22:49
Speaker 6: allows them to, which it often doesn't, depending on yeah,
22:54
Speaker 6: other things, and that takes away from the actual research
22:57
Speaker 6: and the work that we're here to do. And yeah,
23:00
Speaker 6: it's just it's frustrating at the richest university in the country,
23:07
Speaker 6: but it's also a problem that exists at every university.
23:11
Speaker 6: I would really like to see Harvard use its financial
23:14
Speaker 6: safety net to help its most vulnerable workers.
23:18
Speaker 7: I think, to add on and add even more context
23:23
Speaker 7: from like another part of the university. I think that
23:28
Speaker 7: the mission or goals of the academic world, like there
23:34
Speaker 7: can sometimes be misconceptions about them.
23:36
Speaker 8: I think we.
23:37
Speaker 7: Do a lot of very like niche research that is
23:42
Speaker 7: aimed at producing niche knowledge, and I think that that
23:45
Speaker 7: is an extremely valuable thing that we get to do
23:47
Speaker 7: as a society and extremely important. And also I think
23:51
Speaker 7: the mission of universities is quite practical too, coming from
23:57
Speaker 7: the graduate school of education, I like teach people who
24:01
Speaker 7: are graduate students who are like training to become teachers,
24:05
Speaker 7: or who have like like you know, left the classroom
24:10
Speaker 7: and are now like trying to become administrators, school administrators
24:14
Speaker 7: or things like that.
24:15
Speaker 8: And the work that I see.
24:17
Speaker 7: Myself doing is taking this extremely valuable knowledge that we're
24:22
Speaker 7: able to produce as a society and helping to like
24:26
Speaker 7: actually make it change the lives of people everywhere, like
24:30
Speaker 7: through the work of a teacher. For example, I was
24:32
Speaker 7: a high school teacher prior to starting the PhD program,
24:35
Speaker 7: and so now I like draw substantially on that experience
24:38
Speaker 7: as a worker at this university. And so I think
24:43
Speaker 7: the idea that our jobs are not practical like that
24:48
Speaker 7: they're not, Like having a real impact in the world
24:52
Speaker 7: can be a misconception, and I think it's important to
24:55
Speaker 7: like broaden what it means, like to broaden the understanding
24:58
Speaker 7: of what the purpose of a university is. The other
25:01
Speaker 7: thing I wanted to say is that, like I love
25:03
Speaker 7: the work that I do, so many of the people
25:06
Speaker 7: around me love the work that we do. And I've
25:10
Speaker 7: had many conversations with my colleagues who are sad about striking,
25:15
Speaker 7: like we feel energized by it. But I had to
25:18
Speaker 7: miss the like last two weeks of the class that
25:22
Speaker 7: I've spent the entire semester teaching, where my students were
25:25
Speaker 7: doing their final presentations of projects that they've been working
25:29
Speaker 7: on that are like learning experiences that they're designing and
25:33
Speaker 7: hoping to take to like students that you know are
25:35
Speaker 7: in classrooms with them.
25:37
Speaker 8: And that was extremely sad for me, And.
25:39
Speaker 7: I think it's important to just underscore that we're not
25:43
Speaker 7: doing this simply to cause disruption, Like there are like
25:47
Speaker 7: goals that we have that demonstrate like how untenable the
25:51
Speaker 7: teaching and working situation is at this university. Like we
25:56
Speaker 7: have these goals because we don't feel that we can
25:59
Speaker 7: continue you working otherwise, like we can't effectively teach or
26:04
Speaker 7: do research if we're afraid of ice coming onto campus
26:07
Speaker 7: and our colleagues being deported. We can't do research and
26:12
Speaker 7: teaching if we're worried that professor is going to retaliate
26:16
Speaker 7: against us if we like say something in the classroom
26:20
Speaker 7: that they disagree with. And those conditions are detrimental to
26:25
Speaker 7: like the mission of the university from both this like
26:29
Speaker 7: knowledge production angle as well as this making knowledge applied angle.
26:33
Speaker 2: Well, and I think that's that's really powerfully put by
26:36
Speaker 2: all of you, and you know, just to like throw
26:38
Speaker 2: in the other you know, economic kind of point is
26:42
Speaker 2: like you know, you can't do that work if you
26:44
Speaker 2: don't know if you're going to have a roof over
26:46
Speaker 2: your head, right, I mean like and that could be
26:48
Speaker 2: said of any job, Like who can do their job
26:51
Speaker 2: well when they don't know where their next meal is
26:54
Speaker 2: going to come from, if they don't know if they're
26:55
Speaker 2: going to get evicted? Like I know what that feels like.
26:59
Speaker 2: People who live listen to the show, know what that
27:01
Speaker 2: feels like. Right, And so it doesn't matter where you're working,
27:04
Speaker 2: but like, if you are not being paid enough to live,
27:10
Speaker 2: you know, like it's it's insane for bosses to still
27:13
Speaker 2: expect you know.
27:14
Speaker 1: All of us.
27:16
Speaker 2: And just to really underscore this for folks listening who
27:19
Speaker 2: don't live in or near Boston, you know, I just
27:21
Speaker 2: did a quick search on apartments dot com and a
27:24
Speaker 2: one bedroom apartment average rent in Boston is over thirty
27:28
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars a month. Average one bedroom apartment rent
27:33
Speaker 2: in Cambridge is thirty three hundred a month or more.
27:38
Speaker 1: So, like that is not cheap, you know, like by
27:42
Speaker 1: any stretch.
27:43
Speaker 2: And to say nothing of like the gas being like
27:45
Speaker 2: a billion dollars right now because of the stupid war
27:48
Speaker 2: with a run Sorry I cut somebody off.
27:51
Speaker 4: No you're so fine, I jumped in. It's the ADHD.
27:54
Speaker 4: But yeah, no to.
27:55
Speaker 3: Your point, I'm moving in July, and when I to
28:00
Speaker 3: go look at my little pistachio shell of an apartment.
28:03
Speaker 4: I'm about to move to excited about it.
28:04
Speaker 3: But the management of the building was like, oh, you're
28:10
Speaker 3: lucky you've got one of the apartments that's under two
28:13
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. In Boston, it's nineteen ninety five a month,
28:16
Speaker 3: not including utility, so like, and it's like a known thing,
28:19
Speaker 3: like it is just very expensive to live here. And
28:25
Speaker 3: it's one of those areas where unless you drive, you
28:28
Speaker 3: kind of have to live in the cities. You have
28:32
Speaker 3: to live in Cambridge, you have to live in Boston.
28:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in there, man, I've spoken on that campus
28:37
Speaker 2: like it ain't it ain't easy. And even if you
28:40
Speaker 2: do drive, the streets are so nuts over there that
28:42
Speaker 2: I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. But I'm
28:44
Speaker 2: a Southern Californian who's used to a grid. Baby, I'm
28:47
Speaker 2: not used to you know, the higglety Pickley streets of Boston.
28:50
Speaker 2: But I digress, you know, So, like I want to
28:53
Speaker 2: take a step back for a second, right, you know,
28:57
Speaker 2: as a former graduate student worker myself and a former
29:01
Speaker 2: union member at the University of Michigan.
29:03
Speaker 1: Shout out Geo.
29:05
Speaker 2: You know, I've always had a special place in my
29:08
Speaker 2: heart for the academic labor movement, and we have covered,
29:11
Speaker 2: you know, on this show and at the Real News.
29:14
Speaker 2: You know, labor struggles in higher ed led by students,
29:17
Speaker 2: grad students, non tenured faculty, tenured faculty. I mean we're
29:22
Speaker 2: talking public schools, private schools, strikes, unionization efforts. You know,
29:28
Speaker 2: I even interviewed Harvard grad union folks during the twenty
29:32
Speaker 2: nineteen strike when I was an editor at the Chronicle
29:35
Speaker 2: of Higher Education. And I say that because you know,
29:38
Speaker 2: of course, the demands at the center of this fight
29:42
Speaker 2: that you know, we've been talking about here, they echo
29:45
Speaker 2: a lot of the demands that I've heard from other
29:47
Speaker 2: academic workers in years past. But of course the elephant
29:52
Speaker 2: in the room is that we are living in a
29:54
Speaker 2: very different era in America right now. You know, you
29:58
Speaker 2: guys are are living, working, teaching, preparing for your careers,
30:03
Speaker 2: and bargaining all while massed federal agents are swarming our
30:08
Speaker 2: cities and snatching international students and brown people who look
30:12
Speaker 2: like their immigrants like off the street, and student protesters
30:16
Speaker 2: from their campuses. The Trump administration has launched an all
30:20
Speaker 2: out war on institutions of higher education, from you know,
30:24
Speaker 2: canceling or holding hostage billions of dollars of federal funds
30:28
Speaker 2: and grants, you know, upending the entire academic research infrastructure,
30:33
Speaker 2: to you know, the shaking down of universities, including Harvard,
30:38
Speaker 2: with these gangsterish lawsuits. And I mean, like, you know,
30:41
Speaker 2: they're tenured professors who are getting fired right now for
30:44
Speaker 2: blatantly political reasons, all while university administrations have ramped up
30:50
Speaker 2: their own internal surveillance and repression machines to smash free
30:55
Speaker 2: speech and to smash student protests after all the guy encampments.
31:01
Speaker 2: And you know, while all of that is happening, like
31:04
Speaker 2: I said, Harvard itself and high profile people like former
31:09
Speaker 2: Harvard President Larry Summers are being implicated in the goddamn
31:13
Speaker 2: Epstein files. And the whole point being like, this is
31:17
Speaker 2: a bat shit time to be alive and a bat
31:21
Speaker 2: shit time to be a Harvard graduate student worker.
31:24
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to ask if you could each.
31:27
Speaker 2: Kind of give us a worker's I view and talk
31:30
Speaker 2: about what it's been like in your own lives to
31:33
Speaker 2: try to carry on working and getting paid like normal
31:37
Speaker 2: this past year when everything is so grossly not normal.
31:43
Speaker 4: I can, Yeah, that's a great question. I can start
31:45
Speaker 4: us out.
31:46
Speaker 3: My research for my dissertation is about media literacy and
31:50
Speaker 3: analysis and re analysis and fighting fascism, and so it's
31:57
Speaker 3: been a very crazy running a union and working on
32:04
Speaker 3: a dissertation like that. So I'll leave that at that.
32:06
Speaker 3: There's a lot, there's a wealth of things to write
32:10
Speaker 3: dissertations about inside of that but as someone who largely
32:15
Speaker 3: teaches undergrads, it has been very hard because there are
32:20
Speaker 3: so many days where I think about the fact that, like,
32:24
Speaker 3: it's crazy being a grad student now, and I was
32:27
Speaker 3: an undergrad during the first Trump term, but I can't
32:30
Speaker 3: even imagine what it's like to becoming of age, like
32:33
Speaker 3: in your late teens early twenties at this point. And
32:38
Speaker 3: I think so much of what I think is important
32:42
Speaker 3: as a teacher is reminding students that, like, this is
32:45
Speaker 3: an insane world and that they have to take care
32:48
Speaker 3: of themselves in order for their brains to function in
32:51
Speaker 3: order to get the grades that they so desperately want
32:55
Speaker 3: to achieve. And these are also all kids who have
32:58
Speaker 3: been relentless throughout high school, throughout middle school in order to.
33:02
Speaker 4: End up again.
33:03
Speaker 3: There is a ton of luck involved in getting into
33:07
Speaker 3: an IVY league, but like, these are still kids who
33:09
Speaker 3: are not used to failing and then they come here
33:11
Speaker 3: and even there's talk, there's talk being made around the
33:17
Speaker 3: university about putting a tap on the percentage of a's
33:20
Speaker 3: that can go out to student classes, which as someone
33:24
Speaker 3: in the humanities, is absurd because I'm teaching like introductory
33:29
Speaker 3: music theory and analysis classes. How are we supposed to
33:33
Speaker 3: be putting a cap on the number of people who
33:34
Speaker 3: get a's if they walk into the classroom not knowing
33:37
Speaker 3: any theory and walk out of the classroom like able
33:40
Speaker 3: to read, able to identify chords. But that's a little
33:43
Speaker 3: bit inside baseball. But I think it really does illustrate
33:46
Speaker 3: how frustrating it has been to be a teacher and
33:51
Speaker 3: a researcher here and now and here even just being
33:55
Speaker 3: America in general. Like, I think a lot of the
33:57
Speaker 3: things that we've seen, this gangsterish ability that the Trump
34:00
Speaker 3: administration believes they have to try and shake down institutions
34:05
Speaker 3: is directly related to the fact that we over the
34:09
Speaker 3: course of the last like thirty forty years have did
34:11
Speaker 3: to even have like completely disengaged with social science, with humanities,
34:19
Speaker 3: with the value of like critical thinking and literacy. And
34:23
Speaker 3: it makes our jobs hard as well because we also
34:27
Speaker 3: have AI and AI protections are something that we're not
34:30
Speaker 3: like forefronting in this current fight for our contract because
34:33
Speaker 3: no one knows what's happening with it. So it's really rewarding,
34:38
Speaker 3: I think to me personally, But that's again because I
34:40
Speaker 3: love teaching. I love the work that I do, but
34:44
Speaker 3: it is difficult already, and then to think about the
34:48
Speaker 3: students that I care about that I've had to strike from.
34:51
Speaker 4: To Jacob's point, like.
34:54
Speaker 3: There were final projects I was excited to hear about,
34:57
Speaker 3: and in the back of my head as president, I
34:59
Speaker 3: knew that there was looming threat of, oh, Harvard's not
35:02
Speaker 3: going to cooperate with us to the point that we
35:05
Speaker 3: will need to do a work stoppage. I'm not going
35:07
Speaker 3: to be able to see like how these kids are doing.
35:09
Speaker 3: A lot of them are graduating, and so I hope
35:12
Speaker 3: they reach out to me once they're done with their
35:15
Speaker 3: time at this institution so they can say like, hey,
35:17
Speaker 3: this is what I'm doing now, because I haven't been
35:21
Speaker 3: able to see their last few weeks in my class.
35:24
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's sort of the feeling that I've had
35:27
Speaker 3: for like several years at this point is like, holy shit,
35:30
Speaker 3: it sucks to be an adult person under this, but
35:34
Speaker 3: it must really suck to be like nineteen. I don't
35:40
Speaker 3: know if that answers your question, but that's kind of
35:42
Speaker 3: where my mind jumps.
35:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so true.
35:45
Speaker 6: It's like terrifying thinking of what it would be like
35:47
Speaker 6: to be a young person going through this as a researcher.
35:51
Speaker 6: It's been a really wild ride because our funding kind
35:55
Speaker 6: of gets turned on and off at the whim of
35:58
Speaker 6: the federal government. Particularly, been a little crazy to be
36:04
Speaker 6: I'm Jewish and to be a Jewish grad worker at
36:06
Speaker 6: Harvard when our funding is being cut off over accusations
36:10
Speaker 6: of anti Semitism. I maintain that it's anti semitic to
36:18
Speaker 6: to put Jewish workers out of jobs, but also, yeah.
36:25
Speaker 4: It is wild.
36:26
Speaker 5: In the medical school, we definitely have people who are
36:29
Speaker 5: in the.
36:29
Speaker 6: Epstein files, and it's wild to be like walking past
36:32
Speaker 6: those labs. It has been good for my imposter syndrome, though,
36:35
Speaker 6: because I'll like think to myself.
36:37
Speaker 5: I must have this experiment.
36:39
Speaker 6: I'm so dumb, I'm the worst, And then I'll think, well, Alisa,
36:42
Speaker 6: I never put myself in the Epstein font. But more seriously,
36:48
Speaker 6: I feel like in this time, in addition to the
36:51
Speaker 6: regular work we've been doing, we've also been expected to
36:53
Speaker 6: be ambassadors of Harvard to the larger community, trying to
36:57
Speaker 6: show that actually we bring value to this nation and
37:00
Speaker 6: to communities across the country, not just our Ivory Tower bubbles.
37:09
Speaker 6: And so it's been frustrating to sort of take on
37:12
Speaker 6: that extra role and then not be recognized for any
37:16
Speaker 6: of our labor.
37:17
Speaker 5: Contributions in a way. And also seeing how.
37:24
Speaker 6: How much money faculty members or people at Harvard have
37:28
Speaker 6: taken from independent donors like Jeffrey Epstein and like actively
37:33
Speaker 6: pursue those kind of donations. I think has helped me
37:36
Speaker 6: feel more firm in my stance and pushing back on
37:39
Speaker 6: Harvard's claim that they're too poor to give us better
37:41
Speaker 6: benefits and pay equity because they're constantly selling off parts
37:46
Speaker 6: of the school, selling off the naming rights like our
37:49
Speaker 6: graduate school for example, and taking in donations and it
37:54
Speaker 6: just doesn't line up with the picture that they're painting
37:57
Speaker 6: of their financial situation. Not that I'm saying they should
38:00
Speaker 6: continue to take donations from people like Jeffrey Epstein, but
38:03
Speaker 6: that they have so many different ways of increasing their wealth,
38:09
Speaker 6: and so it's frustrating to constantly be told, Oh, we're
38:11
Speaker 6: too poor to pay your coworkers and the humanities to teach,
38:16
Speaker 6: you know, the next generation of scholars.
38:20
Speaker 8: Yeah.
38:20
Speaker 7: I want to pick up on the thread too about
38:23
Speaker 7: the like image that Harvard is trying to project for
38:26
Speaker 7: itself at this time. Max, as you've discussed and described
38:31
Speaker 7: already like we are in like like honestly very depressing
38:35
Speaker 7: times that make me very concerned for marginalized populations like
38:39
Speaker 7: non citizens in this in this country.
38:42
Speaker 8: And it's for me easy to despair in these times.
38:49
Speaker 7: What does give me hope is like thinking about the
38:52
Speaker 7: kinds of institutions that we can build that can stand
38:55
Speaker 7: up to these forces. And a year ago, year a
39:00
Speaker 7: half ago, Harvard tried to pain itself as one of
39:02
Speaker 7: those institutions. Our president wrote this extensive letter initially pushing
39:08
Speaker 7: back against the Trump administration about protecting our university, and
39:13
Speaker 7: there was a moment where I was hopeful. There was
39:15
Speaker 7: a moment where I was like, maybe Harvard is actually
39:17
Speaker 7: going to do something to stand up to these fascist forces.
39:23
Speaker 7: And over the last twelve months, I think despite that
39:27
Speaker 7: public projection, the lived experience has been completely counter to that.
39:31
Speaker 7: We continue to live in conditions of immen's opacity about
39:35
Speaker 7: what the administration is doing, the Harvard administration. I am
39:39
Speaker 7: constantly having conversations with people about like little whisperings they've
39:43
Speaker 7: heard of the negotiations that are happening between the Trump
39:47
Speaker 7: administration and the Harvard administration, and we all kind of
39:50
Speaker 7: know that there's a backroom deal brewing and we're just
39:53
Speaker 7: either waiting for some announcement to drop or perhaps even
39:58
Speaker 7: more like scarily waiting for these changes to just start
40:02
Speaker 7: taking place on our campus that demonstrate the acquiescence to
40:07
Speaker 7: the Trump administration without needing to take the heat from that.
40:13
Speaker 7: And so that is like, yeah, I guess said, it
40:16
Speaker 7: leads to despair. It's hard to stay hopeful. But I
40:21
Speaker 7: think that like HGSU Ur Graduate Students Union is a
40:25
Speaker 7: counter to that, Like it is an example of an
40:28
Speaker 7: institution that is genuinely committed to democratic engagement, and that
40:32
Speaker 7: is genuinely committed to caring for the experiences and the
40:36
Speaker 7: lives and the well being of all of its members,
40:39
Speaker 7: regardless of whether they are the president of the of
40:42
Speaker 7: the union or like a rank and file member who
40:46
Speaker 7: is still trying to figure out what the union can
40:48
Speaker 7: do for them. Being in the union, being involved in organizing,
40:52
Speaker 7: and seeing the power of collective action that we're able
40:55
Speaker 7: to pull together through our organizing is the thing that's
40:58
Speaker 7: giving me hope right now as a graduate student worker,
41:01
Speaker 7: but also just as a person living through these troubling times.
41:06
Speaker 3: If I could add just a little bit to Jacob's
41:08
Speaker 3: point about the fact that like we all had like
41:11
Speaker 3: a hope when the university initially pushed back against Trump administration.
41:17
Speaker 3: They've introduced these campus use roles, especially since the encampments,
41:20
Speaker 3: that are a little dra knic, to the point that
41:24
Speaker 3: like early this year there was a big thing that
41:29
Speaker 3: happened where they made a faculty member take down a
41:32
Speaker 3: huge sign that says Black Lives Matter that had been
41:35
Speaker 3: there since I started year five years ago.
41:38
Speaker 2: And.
41:40
Speaker 3: We were not initially given any sort of reasoning why.
41:43
Speaker 3: And then it was like, oh, the campus use roles,
41:45
Speaker 3: you can't put political stuff in windows. And they also
41:48
Speaker 3: tried to make a claim that like because HGSU went
41:51
Speaker 3: on a small campaign with a lot of other unions
41:55
Speaker 3: across Harvard's campus of putting them back up and putting
41:59
Speaker 3: up bunch more little Black Lives Matter signs, And the
42:03
Speaker 3: idea that the hr office offered was like, oh, well,
42:07
Speaker 3: this doesn't have to do with your working conditions, which
42:11
Speaker 3: I can easily make the joke like it does for me,
42:13
Speaker 3: right like, and it does if I'm the president of
42:16
Speaker 3: the union. I fear that it is the labor issue.
42:20
Speaker 4: But what ended up happening was they quietly decided.
42:24
Speaker 3: To allow signs like that back up, but they didn't
42:27
Speaker 3: really mention it. And so I think that that's like
42:30
Speaker 3: a very small, almost like silly story that feels like
42:34
Speaker 3: it belongs in twenty sixteen. But it does show that,
42:38
Speaker 3: like we have the ability and we have been keeping
42:43
Speaker 3: Harvard to account in a way that I hope every
42:47
Speaker 3: workplace is able to do through unionization or just through
42:51
Speaker 3: collective action. I think that's kind of the way that
42:55
Speaker 3: I've been heartened to Jacob's point about the kind of
42:58
Speaker 3: times we live in. It's like, oh, the people power
43:01
Speaker 3: is beyond power and people are starting to realize that
43:05
Speaker 3: and embrace it.
43:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, and I know I got to let
43:09
Speaker 1: you guys go.
43:10
Speaker 2: But with the kind of like final quick turn around
43:13
Speaker 2: the table, I wanted to focus on that and you know,
43:17
Speaker 2: talk about you know where things stand now, you know
43:20
Speaker 2: what happens next, and what folks listening can can do
43:22
Speaker 2: to stand in solidarity with y'all, because you know, like again,
43:25
Speaker 2: anyone who's ever heard about or been a part of
43:29
Speaker 2: an academic labor struggle knows that, you know, the university's
43:32
Speaker 2: got like one, you know, like ace in the hole
43:35
Speaker 2: in its back pocket that it uses every single year,
43:38
Speaker 2: whether it's a strike or a union campaign or a protest,
43:41
Speaker 2: Wait for the summer, Wait for the summer, and hope
43:44
Speaker 2: that all the students dissipate, some of the grad union members,
43:48
Speaker 2: you know, graduate out, some of the faculty don't get reappointed.
43:52
Speaker 2: Like you have a built in system in higher ed
43:56
Speaker 2: because of the academic calendar that makes it very difficult
43:59
Speaker 2: to maintain kind of momentum for political and labor struggles
44:04
Speaker 2: like this. But you know that's not always the case, right,
44:08
Speaker 2: I mean, like there we've reported on many strikes that
44:12
Speaker 2: you know, supposedly ended at the end of the school
44:14
Speaker 2: year and then picked right back up in the fall.
44:17
Speaker 8: You know.
44:17
Speaker 2: So, I guess I just wanted to ask y'all, like,
44:19
Speaker 2: given where we are right now in early May, you know,
44:23
Speaker 2: where do things stand with the strike?
44:25
Speaker 1: What comes next?
44:26
Speaker 2: And Yeah, what can folks listening do to stand in
44:29
Speaker 2: solidarity with y'all?
44:30
Speaker 8: Yeah?
44:31
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that people can do
44:34
Speaker 3: is continue to share this kind of information with other people.
44:41
Speaker 3: Our website HDSU dot org or link tree slash HGSU
44:46
Speaker 3: has like sources where you can donate to our Hardship
44:49
Speaker 3: Fund where you can sign on as a community member.
44:53
Speaker 3: So all of these things are definitely things that we
44:55
Speaker 3: love and support. But I think Harvard really cares the
44:58
Speaker 3: most about its image, and it doesn't like that we
45:03
Speaker 3: are talking about it, And the only reason why we're
45:06
Speaker 3: talking about is because we want to change it. And
45:09
Speaker 3: I'll just add that, like despite it all, like our
45:14
Speaker 3: ongoing strike, I think we're about we're like halfway through.
45:16
Speaker 4: Week three at this point.
45:20
Speaker 3: The university has not offered us any additional bargaining sessions,
45:24
Speaker 3: so our next one is May fourteenth, and that runs
45:29
Speaker 3: dangerously close to the finals period and the end of
45:33
Speaker 3: the grading period. So this is a really difficult and
45:39
Speaker 3: powerful time to strike, and I think we're holding the
45:41
Speaker 3: line really strongly. To your point, they can always say
45:45
Speaker 3: like we'll wait to the summer, and we can just
45:48
Speaker 3: as easily say wait to the fall. But I think
45:51
Speaker 3: we're still deciding and planning how we want to keep
45:55
Speaker 3: this leverage.
45:56
Speaker 4: Up and call Harvard to account.
45:58
Speaker 3: We do have faculty members who are going to rather
46:00
Speaker 3: tired of the strike, so we're happy to see them
46:03
Speaker 3: join our ranks. But yeah, all kinds of sharing, donating
46:08
Speaker 3: all of that is immensely helpful.
46:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, Definitely, knowledge is power, and I think that Harvard,
46:15
Speaker 6: the administration and the representatives at the bargaining table, they
46:19
Speaker 6: rely on the fact that the public and even many
46:23
Speaker 6: members of the Harvard community will believe the stores they're
46:28
Speaker 6: putting out that they just can't afford to give us
46:31
Speaker 6: the benefits and the pay equity were asking for. And
46:34
Speaker 6: the more everyone pushes back on that, including people that
46:38
Speaker 6: don't live in this area, but all across the country.
46:41
Speaker 6: Like I'm from a small town in a red district,
46:45
Speaker 6: and I think it's really powerful to build solidarity with
46:49
Speaker 6: people in my hometown because they have representatives in Congress
46:54
Speaker 6: that hold power and we don't have any other connection
46:58
Speaker 6: to those people or those represent So this summer, one
47:02
Speaker 6: thing I'm going to focus on is connecting back up
47:05
Speaker 6: with some of the working class movements in my hometown
47:08
Speaker 6: and like strengthening those partnerships.
47:11
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think, at the risk of sounding corny, I
47:16
Speaker 7: do think that like just participation in this growing labor
47:21
Speaker 7: movement is what seems most important to me right now,
47:24
Speaker 7: because it's across the country and around the world. I
47:27
Speaker 7: think we're starting to see changes in labor, changes in
47:32
Speaker 7: labor organizing and I think that those are really powerful.
47:35
Speaker 7: What will happen with us is extremely important, and we're
47:40
Speaker 7: committed to that fight. But it's just one small fight
47:44
Speaker 7: amongst this many fights that are going on across the
47:47
Speaker 7: country and around the world right now. And I think,
47:51
Speaker 7: just like doing what we can to support, labor organizing
47:55
Speaker 7: is important, whether it's at Harvard.
47:57
Speaker 8: Or in hospital, and.
48:03
Speaker 7: Like the cab of a delivery truck, like those many
48:07
Speaker 7: places that we need labor organizing right now, and that
48:12
Speaker 7: seems urgent and important.
48:19
Speaker 2: All right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
48:22
Speaker 2: us today. I want to thank our guests Sarah Speller,
48:26
Speaker 2: Zoe Fetter, and Jacob Wolfe, all graduate student workers at
48:30
Speaker 2: Harvard University, and all members or officers of the Harvard
48:33
Speaker 2: Graduate Students Union, which has been on strike since April
48:37
Speaker 2: twenty First, you can stay up to date on the
48:39
Speaker 2: strike and follow the grad Union using the links that
48:42
Speaker 2: we provided for y'all in the show notes for this episode.
48:45
Speaker 2: And of course I want to thank you all for listening,
48:48
Speaker 2: and I want to thank you for caring. We'll see
48:50
Speaker 2: y'all back here next time for another episode of Working People,
48:54
Speaker 2: and in the meantime, go explore all the great work
48:56
Speaker 2: that we're doing at the Real News Network, where we
48:59
Speaker 2: do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories
49:02
Speaker 2: from the front lines of struggle. Check us out across
49:05
Speaker 2: our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website, and our
49:09
Speaker 2: social media pages. And help us do more work like
49:12
Speaker 2: this by going to the realnews dot com, forward slash,
49:15
Speaker 2: donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys,
49:18
Speaker 2: it really does make a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take
49:23
Speaker 2: care of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever, man,
49:30
Speaker 2: my fish.
49:31
Speaker 8: You no longer see. I live on, Yes, I live on.
49:35
Speaker 1: Wherever we go.
49:37
Speaker 9: We're going to roll the union on a song I
49:41
Speaker 9: live on. Yes, I live on. Whyever hunger are we
49:46
Speaker 9: just as homeless Honger can be? This song I live on, Yes,
49:52
Speaker 9: I live on, Well me, things are happening in this land?
49:56
Speaker 9: Just read a song. I live on. Yes, I live on.
50:00
Speaker 9: Wherever the book means things. What happening in this land
50:04
Speaker 9: is read? I live on, Yes, I'll live on wherever
50:09
Speaker 9: the video tad for me you showing I live on.
50:13
Speaker 5: Yes, I live on.
50:15
Speaker 8: If I have help to make this a better wood
50:18
Speaker 8: to live in.
50:20
Speaker 9: I'll live on, Yes, I'll live on when my body
50:23
Speaker 9: was solid and in something long and bread. I'll live on, Yes.
50:29
Speaker 3: I live on.
50:31
Speaker 9: When my songs and poems are read, I'll live on. Yes,
50:36
Speaker 9: I live on