Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers filed unfair labor practice charges against Harvard on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the University’s response to the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard violated the rights of student workers.
In an email sent to union members on Wednesday, the HGSU-UAW executive board accused Harvard of “discrimination” and “suppression of protected concerted activity.” The executive board wrote that by placing protesters on involuntary leaves — which are likely to be retracted now that the encampment has ended — the University left them without food and financial aid and put at least one union member at risk of deportation.
In the filing, HGSU-UAW also accused Harvard of surveillance. On Monday, Harvard University Police Department officers entered the encampment and took pictures of protestors.
“The way that we see it is any kind of disciplinary action leveled at student workers that implicates their ability to work and their employment at the University as a student worker is a labor issue,” HGSU President Bailey A. Plaman said.
Plaman alleged that Harvard also discriminated against workers by being “invested in the genocide in Gaza.”
“This discriminates against and creates a hostile work environment for Arab, Muslim, and especially Palestinian student workers,” Plaman said. “Student workers were disciplined for protesting these unfair and unsafe working conditions which we see as discrimination for exercising their right to protest which is protected by the NLRB, and discrimination for their political beliefs, which are protected by our contract with the University.”
