Word: hcecp
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...sure, the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP) has broken much new ground. It recommended a policy of wage parity between direct and outsourced employees, as well as a significant one-time increase in wages. It made an unambiguous commitment to collective bargaining and criticized Harvard for seeking cheaper labor through outsourcing. And it brought attention to reports of an occasionally hostile or abusive environment for Harvard workers that frustrates the University’s stated policies and that must be addressed quickly...
...addition to recommendations, the committee was supposed to provide reasoning. The campus looked to the HCECP not only for the resolution of an extended political conflict, but also for an explanation of how Harvard should act as a university and an employer. The report speaks often and with much fervor about Harvard’s “obligation to be a good employer,” and Harvard is of course obliged to be morally responsible in all things. But anyone consulting the report to learn what being a good employer might entail (and why) will find painfully little...
...fulfill its teaching and research missions.” This is an obligation of purely instrumental value; a hypothetical imperative, not a categorical one. To the committee, a good employer provides the wages and benefits “necessary to attract, retain, and motivate employees.” The HCECP identifies only one reason why Harvard must contribute to a “minimally decent standard of living” for workers’ families, namely that such a contribution is required in order to attain the “personnel-related outcomes” of retaining and motivating employees...
...empirical claim—that higher wages will improve the University’s teaching and research efforts—the committee risks being flat-out wrong. Harvard certainly pays attractive wages to professors, but it might decide that attractive wages for custodians are less mission-critical, and the HCECP makes no effort to convince the administration of the contrary...
...tensions in this report go remarkably deep. The HCECP bases its central recommendation, the call for parity, on the grounds that Harvard “should not use outsourcing to undermine its obligations to collectively bargain in good faith with its unionized employees.” However, it would seem that parity has nothing at all to do with bargaining in good faith; Harvard might show the utmost honesty in all union negotiations and still seek to outsource work at lower cost...