As you read in our previous post, the HGSU–or Harvard Graduate Student Union–generously lent their resources and support to my efforts. That is, to finish what I came here to Harvard to do: earn my doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in history–the History of United States currency to be specific. Union leadership was outright appalled to learn of the long pattern of harassment, unfair treatment, false accusations, manufactured obstacles, silencing, intimidation, police abuse, bald-faced discrimination (and the list goes on and on, unfortunately), targeted at me by Harvard during my years here.
To be more clear: they weren’t so much surprised that Harvard has comported itself the way they have, but rather that so many of the actions and tactics–that they were eager to hear in great detail–had been directed at one single person, me. As I learned from talking to them and, now, many others at Harvard–much of these types of actions, directed at “certain students,” are nothing new in these parts. In fact, they’re endemic.
Needless to say, HGSU was more than glad to lend their support–and, I was relieved to have them on my side, advocating for answers to important questions from the university.
Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived.
Harvard did take its sweet time to do so, but eventually did respond to the well-composed, succinct, and reasonable letter to Harvard administration–sent on my behalf by the HGSU’s leadership-level representatives—seeking clarification on the so-called “policies” used to justify their many adverse actions. That includes everything from “creative accounting” with my federal-loan eligibility, to outright denial of my federally protected right to federal loans (with made-up “new requirements” that contradict their own published and distributed instructions); misrepresentations (and intentional delays) to justify trumped-up dismissals; stonewalling a series of options to enable me to properly enroll and continue my work, rather than waste even more years fighting Harvard for what others get as a matter of course; and other over-the-top abuses.
And this was just the recent stuff, not even getting into entirety of their actions.
The less-than-honest (“bad faith,” in lawyer-speak) response came from the liaison for “Union Affairs” at Harvard, a Brian Magner–a former lawyer at a firms specializing in minimizing worker rights, “optimizing human resources,” and stomping any union-like action–with the fancy title of Associate Director, Office of Labor and Employee Relations.
[My office has] no record of this William Chiriguayo ever holding a student worker position covered by the HGSU contract…
-Brian Magner, Harvard University
Evidently his response was keeping with his default pattern ever since graduate students at Harvard successfully unionized–after long and astonishingly firm resistance from the university–for better work conditions and, more importantly, recognition of their status as workers for the university in preforming an array of jobs during their years advancing through graduate programs into increasingly more senior status and specialization.
Harvard’s slow and repetitive responses…[and Magner’s use] of an absurd technicality…feels like an attempt to start to erode our bargaining [agreement] piece by piece.
-Hannah Pinkham, in The Harvard Crimson
Now, keep in mind: graduate-student jobs run the gamut, big time. That means everything from working as teaching assistants (“teaching fellows”), to research assistants, to “fellows” in one of Harvard’s many-many internal entities, to advising undergraduates, to working with deans to re-write a student manual, to just-about-anything.
But Mr. Magner’s response, likely in consultation with unknown and behind-closed-doors “contributors,” is yet another instance of searching for (or even manufacturing, as in this case) an excuse to ignore any grievance, request, or even acknowledgement. In other words, to make bad-faith “plausibly deniable” claims–allowing graduate students to think a union technically exists, but not honoring the agreement the university shook hands on.
There are lot more where this came from (before, during, and since the Graduate Student Union was formed).
The problem for Mr. Magner is: I was, in fact, an employee at Harvard–before, during, and after the unionization agreement. Non-employees don’t get paychecks, W-2s, or 1099s–of which I have an abundance to prove otherwise (see image).
Magner’s claims would be laughable, if they didn’t have such far-reaching consequences, very concerning implications, a long history from his office, and stated with confidence in the face of readily available evidence to the contrary.
In short: he knew this when he wrote his bullsh*t response. And, as the article linked above shows, many other denials, dodging, and acts of circular logic since his installation as Pinkerton Associate Office of Union-Busting.
When you hire a lawyer with two decades of experience in union busting to be your “liaison” between the Graduate-Student Union and the University, you’re pretty much signaling your intentions. And, as you can see, Mr. Magner is committed to his Pinkerton union-busting duties: hitting Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V on his keyboard, probably for the better part of his work week. And lunch in between, of course.
Even so, I’m not sure how good he actually is even at that job.
See, when I can pull out dozens and dozens of paystubs and other evidence that he, in fact, should (and, let’s face it, does) have a record “of [me] holding a student worker position” he should’ve maybe opted for more than another copy-paste job.
If Harvard–and its associate director of labor matters–is willing to go so far as to say people don’t exist, and end the conversation there, do we really have a union?
Was that agreement between both sides just another instance of lying to our face, knowing the Almighty Harvard Brand has the resources and power to say and do whatever they want?
If you didn’t already know, Harvard routinely claims–and acts like–they’re above the law. But they ain’t. No one is.
Magner’s response, sanctioned by Harvard leadership, smacks of “unfair labor practices”, as defined by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), as well as violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Now, I ain’t no lawyer, but they seem to call it “misclassification”–and it seems to be a common, and very-much illegal, practice by anti-union employers. I’m pretty sure there’s more, but I defer to the employment-law experts on that.
The bad news: all signs point to Harvard University fitting into that union-busting category. I think we all expected more from our quote-unquote “most prestigious” university. But the receipts are showing the ugly truth–to our collective dismay. They shook our hand with a smiley face, while their other hand was behind their back with fingers crossed.
]We all want to think better of Harvard, but they keep insisting on being a pretty effed up place to work, study, or even associate with.
I mean, just look at who they hired to do their dirty work.
