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Harvard custodians go on strike
Over 800 custodians walked off the job demanding fair wage increases.
On Monday morning, hundreds of custodians holding purple 32BJ SEIU “Harvard On Strike” signs walked off the job, marching through Harvard Yard in Cambridge and demanding fair wage increases.
The strike began Monday at 10 a.m., with a large cohort of custodians directly employed by Harvard who maintain dorms, classrooms, administrative buildings, and other facilities at the university.
The strike will continue with two more cleaning units that Harvard contracts — C&W Services and ABM Industries. The strikes will begin at 10 p.m. on Monday and the next at noon on Tuesday.
The three units include over 800 custodians at Harvard who are members of 32BJ, the Service Employees International Union.
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In a press release, SEIU said the need for action became clear Thursday evening, when 30 members of the custodial bargaining committee walked out of the final bargaining session after the university failed to offer “meaningful wage increases” to keep up with the “skyrocketing cost-of-living since the pandemic.”
32BJ SEIU Executive Vice-President Kevin Brown said that aside from bonus signing money, Harvard and its contractors only offered average annual increases of 2.2% per year — far below regular cost-of-living increases.
“We have stood with Harvard in opposition to the Trump administration’s financial attacks and its attempt to force the university to conform to an extreme ideological agenda,” Brown said in a statement.
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He continued, “But much of that agenda threatens our members as much as it does the university, and now is the time that Harvard needs to demonstrate support for some of its lowest-paid workers, many of whom are people of color and immigrants.”
32BJ SEIU has over 185,000 members in 12 states, including 22,000 in Massachusetts. It is the largest property services union in the country.
“In light of today’s labor activity taken on behalf of custodians across the workforce, Harvard is taking steps to minimize disruption to services across campus,” Jason Newton, a spokesperson for the university, wrote in a statement.
He continued, saying that the university is actively engaging with union leadership and offered additional meeting times to continue negotiations.
Newton said that due to the current financial challenges and ongoing uncertainty, the university offered custodial employees distinct choices in how to approach compensation agreements.
The first includes a short-term contract extension combined with a bonus. The second includes a longer-term extension that includes a combination of bonuses and modest, market-oriented wage increases guaranteed in future years.
Harvard’s turnover rate for custodians in fiscal year 2025 was 3.83% with it lowering to 1.66% this fiscal year.
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“Harvard’s custodial workers are valued members of our community who enable teaching and research in critical ways,” Newtown wrote.
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