[act-ma] TUES APR 23, 5 PM -- PROTEST RACIST LAYOFFS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY!

[Geoff Carens]

Dear All,

A recent reorganization in Harvard's University Financial Services (UFS)
has ended with discriminatory terminations. During a hellish six month
"transition" period <http://www.perspy.com/?p=1072>, employees endured
constant threats that they would be laid off if they did not process
invoices fast enough. The work was distributed unfairly, and at times there
was little to do. However administrators kept up the harassment, eventually
insisting that all the workers be at or above the average rate of
processing at least 75% of the time (impossible for the group to achieve!).
At the end of the "transition," three workers of color, all parents, were
laid off, supposedly for "not meeting productivity expectations." One came
back from a disability leave with a note from her doctor authorizing her
return to work, only to be told she was terminated instead. White workers
with lower rates of production, according to management's own statistics,
all stayed employed. This sickening injustice has already sparked a picket
on January 18 <http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/2503>, one day after the
last layoff, and a larger action on March
7<http://iwwboston.org/2013/03/08/iww-supports-3713-action-against-racist-layoffs-at-harvard-university/>.
Please join us Tuesday April 23, at 5 pm, as we gather in front of
Harvard's Holyoke Center, 1350 Mass Ave in Cambridge, next to Au Bon Pain,
steps from the Harvard Square Red Line T stop.  Escalating protests will
continue until the laid-off UFS workers get justice! The Facebook event is
here <https://www.facebook.com/events/133143180205726/>.

In Solidarity,

Geoff Carens, Union Rep, Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers
(HUCTW/AFSCME Local 3650)
Delegate, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
http://www.iww.org/
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