In response to poorly paid cafeteria workers going on strike at the university, Harvard is recruiting scabs:
Harvard is hiring. Applicants must be willing to work for free in the dining halls.
On Monday, the Ivy League school entered the sixth day of its standoff with dining hall workers, who have gone on strike for the first time in over 30 years. The cafeteria staff are demanding affordable health care and base pay of $35,000 for year-round workers. But workers and Harvard negotiators can’t come to an agreement. And while dining hall workers strike for better wages, Harvard is hiring scabs.
After nearly six months of bargaining with the university, cafeteria staff walked out on Wednesday. In anticipation of a strike, Harvard allegedly stockpiled three days’ worth of frozen foods. But now on the strike’s sixth day, students say they’re living on undercooked chicken prepared by untrained strikebreakers while administrators scour the faculty for any employees willing to serve breakfast.
The university is “actively seeking for volunteers all across campus,” an email from Harvard’s Campus Services implored. The email, obtained by the Harvard Crimson clarified that only employees who were not paid hourly and did not qualify for overtime would be allowed to work for free in the dining halls.
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“Dining hall workers feel like they have really modest demands,” Tiffany Ten Eyck, a spokesperson for Local 26, the Boston-based union that represents Harvard dining hall workers told The Daily Beast. “Especially because Harvard has the resources that it does.”
The dining hall staff is asking Harvard to roll back a proposal that would hike health care costs for employees. The workers also want a guaranteed salary of $35,000 for year-round staffers.
Harvard has an endowment of nearly $40 billion, and it enjoys an annual operating surplus of over $60,000,000.00.
Harvard is balking at a $5000 a year raise for 750 employees, and it wants them to pay more in medical premiums and copays.
To quote Otto from Repo Man, “F%$# that.”