Tag Archives: Harvard U

Harvard Layoffs Threaten the University’s Backbone: Libraries | Labor Notes

Harvard Layoffs Threaten the University’s Backbone: Libraries | Labor Notes.

Harvard has 73 libraries that comprise the largest private library collection in the world. The library system attracts researchers from around the world, a major draw for attracting the best faculty in all fields. From ancient maps to personal effects to photography collections, not to mention millions of books and journals in multiple languages, the materials of Harvard’s libraries are the keystone supporting billions of dollars in research grants awarded to the Harvard community each year.

Such a large collection is unusable without librarians and library staff to catalog materials and help researchers sift through the mountains of information. Most research using the Harvard library would be impossible without the aid of library workers.

Union updates

Philadelphia Inquirer: Temple says faculty stalling contract talks
Temple University has filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against the faculty union, accusing it of failing to continue negotiating a contract because of disagreement over union membership fees.

Socialist Worker: Contract fight at Manhattan School of Music
NEW YORK–After winning a hotly contested union certification battle in May, some 150 teachers of the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-college Division–all of whom are trained as classical or jazz musicians–will enter into collective bargaining negotiations with the administration this fall.

South Coast Today: Faculty union and administration not on same page at UMass Dartmouth
When the fall semester begins at UMass Dartmouth next week, it won’t just be the physics students who will be getting a lesson in friction. The university’s administration and largest professional union aren’t seeing eye to eye over the most recent round of budget cuts and consolidations and, almost to a person, faculty and staff describe the situation as “tense” and “confusing.”

Hartford Courant: UConn Rattled By Union Drive For Doctors
Doctors are getting nervous about changes in health care, too, especially the ones at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Everybody’s on edge as the health center administration adopted a dangerous strategy against the doctors when it distributed an e-mail Thursday seeking to impede a movement by doctors to form a union.

Sudbury Star: LU reaches deal with non-faculty staff union
Laurentian University reached a tentative agreement with the union representing about 250 non-faculty staff on Sunday morning.

Sun Journal: Union, USM may have agreement
LEWISTON – One of four unions working without a contract for the University of Maine System has reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

Sun-Sentinel: Brogan, FAU faculty union duke it out to governor
Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan’s relationship with the faculty union isn’t improving much in his final weeks in office. Brogan, who plans to leave FAU by mid-September to become chancellor of the state university system, sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist saying he’s “disappointed by the level of vitriol,” that United Faculty of Florida has expressed on its blog.

India Express: IIT, IIM faculty to get better pay
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of pay scales of faculty, design, scientific and other academic staff of the centrally funded institutions including IITs and IIMs with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.

Indiana Daily Student: IU officials decide to continue with employee bonus plan
IU will continue with its plan to distribute up to $500 per person to faculty and staff making less than $30,000 a year despite a meeting between IU officials and union leaders July 31.

San Diego News Network: California Budget Crisis Diaries: Lawsuit targets Schwarzenegger
Legislative leaders may be out for summer session but their vacation can’t be too sunny. The cuts throughout the budget – which was signed into law July 28 – are gradually sinking in. Some agencies still don’t understand the impacts, while others continue to receive IOUs, and now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing a lawsuit.

San Francisco Chronicle: Execs still get raises as UC cuts staffing, pay
On the same July day that the UC Board of Regents cut $813 million from UC budgets – setting in motion pay cuts, layoffs and campus cutbacks – the board quietly approved pay raises, stipends and other benefits for more than two dozen executives.

The Crimson: FAS Cuts Janitor Hours
School officials say the moves save jobs, but union calls reductions ‘drastic,’ ‘unnecessary’
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences implemented work hours reductions for over 100 janitors in July—a move that FAS officials say will help cut costs while avoiding layoffs, but union representatives say will devastate worker living standards.

Harvard Licenses Clothing Line Amid ‘Preppy’ Upswing

Bloomberg.com: Harvard Licenses Clothing Line Amid ‘Preppy’ Upswing

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) — Harvard University, the world’s richest school, licensed its name to a maker of designer clothes to take advantage of a taste for seersucker, khakis, loafers and other “preppy” attire.

Second Harvard professor accuses police of bias

Boston Globe: Second professor accuses police of bias

A second black Harvard professor accused the Cambridge police of racism yesterday in wrongfully arresting him outside his home nearly three years ago.

S. Allen Counter, a prominent Harvard Medical School professor and head of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, spoke about his arrest on assault and battery charges in an editorial published yesterday with The Bay State Banner. The disclosure follows last month’s high-profile arrest of renowned African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Charges Against Henry Louis Gates Jr. to Be Dropped

The Chronicle News Blog: Charges Against Henry Louis Gates Jr. to Be Dropped

Authorities in Cambridge, Mass., announced today that prosecutors there would not pursue disorderly-conduct charges brought against the prominent black-studies scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week after he exchanged words with police officers investigating a falsely reported burglary at his home.

Racial talk swirls with Gates arrest

Boston Globe: Racial talk swirls with Gates arrest
Harvard scholar taken from home

His front door refused to budge, which is why Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., just home from a trip to China filming a PBS documentary, set his luggage down and beckoned his driver for help.

Harvard professor Gates arrested at Cambridge home

Boston Globe: Harvard professor Gates arrested at Cambridge home

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Harvard to lay off 275

Boston Globe: Harvard to lay off 275

Harvard University announced this morning that it plans to lay off 275 staff members as the college grapples with budget pressures caused by a precipitous endowment decline.

NIGERIA: Lecturers slam Harvard training deal

World University News: NIGERIA: Lecturers slam Harvard training deal

An agreement struck between Harvard University and the Governors’ Forum in Nigeria for the world-leading US university to teach governors of states in African the fundamentals of good governance has been rejected by lecturers. They described the agreement as wasteful and unproductive, called for its cancellation and suggested governance training take place at home.

Harvard University: The banks, layoffs & growing fightback

Workers World: Harvard University: The banks, layoffs & growing fightback

On June 4, during Commencement Day 2009 at Harvard University—the richest university in the world—graduating students held up signs spelling “N-O L-A-Y-O-F-F-S” inside, while workers on the outside held up the same signs.

For months leading up to commencement, a loose coalition of Harvard students and unions has been protesting layoffs at the university. Comprised of members of the No Layoffs Campaign—started by members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3650; UNITE/HERE; Service Employees union Local 615; Student Labor Action Movement; and other student activists—this grouping has held rallies, marches and forums demanding no layoffs and no cuts in services.