AGREEMENT

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
and
HARVARD UNIVERSITY SECURITY, PARKING AND MUSEUM GUARDS UNION

[Articles VI and XXII and Sideletter A]
[Explanations and comments added, in italics.]

Effective
July 1, 2003 - June 30, 2006

ARTICLE VI
WAGES

In May 2002, the University generously agreed to increase our average wages above the rates that we'd had to settle for in our bargaining agreement of July 1999.  Our wages rose by 10.2%; additional increases in benefits brought our total compensation up by about 17.0%.  Our new Agreement solidifies last year's extraordinary gains.

(a) Any Museum Attendant, Parking Service Monitor, or Security Guard on the payroll as of 07/01/03, shall receive an increase in their base hourly rate according to the schedule set forth below:

(c) New Employee Hiring Schedule for Employees Hired On or After 07/01/03

Category A Regular Museum Attendants and Parking Service Monitors
and
Category B Limited Regular [Part-time] Museum Attendants, Parking Service Monitors, and Guards

ARTICLE XXII
PERSONAL ILLNESS OR INJURY

Category B (part-time) employees are now eligible for sick leave.

All employees shall become eligible to accrue sick leave time, within a fiscal year, as follows:

Category A employees shall accrue sick leave days at the rate of one day per month.  As of July 1 of each year, Category B employees shall be credited with two (2) sick leave days.

Sideletters and Understandings

Sideletter A:

Harvard will now be covering a guard's tuition for two Continuing Education courses each term.  This amounts to a total of $1,000 in financial aid.

Those employees represented by HUSPMGU who are regularly scheduled to work seventeen and one-half (17.5) hours or more per week with service in excess of one year will be eligible to take two “inside” Harvard courses per semester, not to exceed eight credits.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the University: [James LaBua, Labor & Employee Relations]
For the Union: [the five members of the Executive Board]

Comment:
Articles XX and XXI establish grievance resolution and arbitration procedures for the workers represented by our union.  If necessary, a worker can have his or her complaint about the “interpretation and application” of a specific contract provision formally addressed by a neutral third party.  But during the first three steps of grievance resolution, the supervisor and the employee are usually able to gain an appreciation of each other's perspective and arrive at a reasonable solution.

View full text of July 1999 union contract.