Letter from security officer Aryt Alasti to the membership

My fellow Union Member,



As I am sure you are all well aware of, Allied Barton is making a big effort to hire and train new security officers, so as to as much as possible eliminate paying for overtime. Since the beginning of this summer a lot of new hires also took place due to extra coverage requirements at the dormitories and elsewhere which had been mandated by Harvard.

While the Union is not opposed to Allied Barton taking the legitimate steps necessary in order to satisfy its owners, investors, and clients and in fact the Union desires that the company be successful because this translates into job security, and a larger selection of job opportunities for members but the strategies used by the company in pursuit of these goals cannot be in violation of the "Agreement" which it and the SEIU signed as of July 1, 2007. Not only have such violations consistently, repeatedly, and systematically been the case, however, but the pattern and persistence of the violations strongly indicates that they are occurring as part of an intentional plan to act in a way contrary to what has been agreed upon in a legal binding document.

Some of the persons who might have been involved in such planning are now gone or soon will be gone, and the Union has received acknowledgment from Allied Barton that mistakes were made. Additionally, as you may know, when the company insisted on taking grievances, on matters such as improper disciplinary actions and withholding of holiday pay, to arbitration, they have lost so far in every instance. I think there is a lot more respect now for the seriousness, commitment, and competence with which the Union addresses these issues.

However, we are still seeing the widespread practice of new hires being placed for training when no notice of job vacancy was ever distributed by the company. When vacancy notices have been produced, prior to last week they were not being distributed campus-wide,as required by Article 33-"Seniority and Job Openings" of the Agreement. Last weeks announcements were put out so late that the deadline for responding was a day before the date when we received them, and the date of "issuance" showed on the notices was almost two weeks previous to that! Among the "jobs" shown were some that involved fewer than the minimum 16 hours for part-time work. Some individual notices showed multiple positions, which could not have combined as a single person's work-week and/or were otherwise questionable. There has not been so far, in the period of more than a year since the start date of the Agreement, been a single job vacancy announcement supplied by the company in a which is in compliance with Article 33.

The effect of this is to deny to employees the opportunity to be aware of and apply for desirable positions. The advantage to the company has been that new hires, persons from sites outside Harvard, and persons with lesser seniority are able to be placed in these positions, and there is not the possibility of complaints from clients who lose experienced guards to other facilities as a result of transfers. There have been multiple meetings and other communications between the union and the company representatives about these matters, yet we are still being presented with a totally unacceptable farce of useless announcements (which by the way, are being stapled underneath the weekly schedules, but still no binders as per the Agreement).

For those fortunate few who have been able to see the announcements while there was still time to apply, no "bid sheet" form has been made available, as is standard practice elsewhere, to simplify and provide a record of the application, and make it possible to readily summarize the applicant's work history and qualifications. Of course no long term employee is likely to have a "resume'" to present on short notice, so that specification on the announcements is another flaw which needs fixing. Ideally the postings should include brief descriptions of job requirements, so that applicants can indicate the ways in which their experience corresponds to the "ability and performance" which Article 33 states will be a basis for consideration. The union will be producing its own bid sheets soon, since despite past promises these have not been forth coming from the company.

Regarding all new trainees, the explanation we've received recently from the company has been that these people are being "crossed-trained" for positions in which they will not actually be working to begin with, so as to provide future flexibility for schedulings, with trainees subsequently to be placed permanently elsewhere. There have not been job announcements for many of these placements. However most of these people have been hired or brought to Harvard with the expectation of full-time hours. Some for instance at the Harvard College Libraries are already being scheduled to work by themselves after completing training. Others at the libraries are being cut those hours, and if these scheduling are made permanent, that will be in clear violation of the Agreement.

There has been little progress so over such a long period of time with bringing the company's practices into compliance with the relatively simple requirements of the Agreement, that it begins to appear there is more to account for it than just deficiencies of competence or obstinate indifference on the part of certain participants in the process. Very soon, the way things are going, we will have a large number of employees new to Harvard working in various positions which union members did not have a chance to apply for, as is their right. We will have those new persons working many hundreds of hours, which will cost members thousands of dollars' worth of pay. Even if ultimately those hours would have been filled by new hires, it is happening at a greatly accelerated pace because the required process is not being followed. This amounts to what could called "contract-busting".

The union is demanding that:

*Job vacancy announcements be issued in a timely way, for every position.

*Trainees for jobs which have not been assigned to them on the basis of announcement, application, and selection according to the article guidelines of Article 33, will be transferred elsewhere immediately upon completion of such training. All training is to take place in the company of an experienced trainer, who will be scheduled for those same hours.

*As per the exact wording in the Agreement, on request the Employer will inform non- successful applicants of the reason(s) for their non-selection that shall reference the General Evaluation Criteria set forth in the {Agreement} side letter. Any interviewer, including Harvard Administrators, should be prepared to state specifically as above why someone was not chosen for the position.

Since the situation at present is one which must not continue without prompt resolution, and it has not been possible to make satisfactory progress by negotiation and through the grievance process, a protest rally has been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 24, from 3:00pm-5:00pm, outside Holyoke Center in Harvard Square. Leaflets will be distributed, and we will do what we can to get our message out to the Harvard and local communities. I hope you will be there.

More copies of the Agreement will be distributed this week, so that anyone who wants to know just what rights we have according to its provisions (and doesn't already have one) will be able to refer to it. There will be some stocked at centrally located posts such as Alpha as well. A list of union stewards will be included in the upcoming newsletter. Please consult with any of them about concerns you may have. They are a resource for which we can all be grateful, having taken on these responsibilities without compensation so as to be of service to the union-member community.

Aryt Alasti
Secuity -CGIS 3rd shift