Exciting Wins in Our Fight Against Unjust Discipline!
We are excited to announce major wins in our collective fight against the MIT administration’s unjust discipline of graduate workers engaging in peaceful protests!
In May, thirteen graduate workers were given immediate interim suspensions and three more were issued disciplinary cases for participating in peaceful protests. The interim suspensions banned our coworkers from all academic and research activities, cut their employment, evicted them from their on-campus housing, and threatened their immigration status risking deportation, all without due process. Several graduate workers were disciplined on completely false accusations, including the discriminatory targeting of Palestinian students whose cases were dropped hastily when the students pushed back. This unjust discipline not only violates our contract and federal labor law (see FAQ below), but also threatens our freedom to protest, which is a critical tool for us as unionized workers to be able to win improvements to our working conditions.
In response to this unfair discipline, our union and community members across MIT have leapt into action to stand up for our coworkers. We filed three unfair labor practice charges against MIT immediately in response to MIT’s violations of federal labor law. We have also filed several grievances regarding the unfair discipline and campus bans. Our union’s rallies, marches, and petition have brought together thousands of graduate workers, undergraduate students, and MIT community members to make our demand clear: end the unjust discipline for peaceful protest now! All the while, our union’s network of stewards have worked tirelessly to represent the unjustly disciplined workers throughout MIT’s disciplinary proceedings.
In response to our collective pressure, MIT has dropped three baseless disciplinary cases and lifted eleven interim suspensions. Furthermore, we avoided deportation for the workers whose immigration status was at risk due to the interim discipline. The resolved disciplinary cases have been resolved with warnings or probations, successfully avoiding permanent suspensions.
These are immense wins and we thank every grad worker, undergrad, staff, faculty, and community member who stood up to fight against the unjust discipline and to protect our collective freedom to protest. These victories are not victories for any one worker or organization—they are collective victories for the mass movement that fought back!
We have made huge strides in our fight, but there is still more work to be done to wholly right the wrongs. Grad workers are owed thousands of dollars in backpay for the month that their pay was unjustly withheld; MIT has banned several union organizers from campus (in violation of our contract, Article 7 Section 1); and five graduate workers with unresolved cases are still facing unjust discipline, with two still facing interim suspensions. Sign our petition to join the 2500+ people standing against the unfair discipline and share the petition widely: tinyurl.com/mit-unfair-discipline. We will continue to fight because we know that an injury to one is an injury to all!
Please see the FAQ below for more detail on the unjust discipline, our union’s response, and MIT’s violations of federal labor law and our union contract.
In solidarity,
MIT GSU Local Executive Board
FAQ
1. How did our union respond to the unjust discipline?
In response to MIT’s unfair discipline of our coworkers and repression of our workplace right to protest, thousands of graduate workers and MIT community members stood up to demand an end to the unjust discipline for peaceful protest. On May 8th, the day that the interim suspensions were issued, we immediately held a rally in support of our coworkers outside of the Student Center. On May 10th, more than 500 of us rallied for our coworkers on the steps of Lobby 7 and marched to President Kornbluth’s house. We then launched our petition against the unjust discipline, which has since gathered over 2500 signatures including nearly 1000 grad workers. On May 17th, we again marched in the hundreds to deliver the petition directly to the MIT president. The voice of the MIT community is clear: end the unjust discipline for peaceful protest now!
Graduate workers have asserted their Weingarten rights to have union representation throughout the disciplinary process and our union stewards have worked tirelessly to represent and defend graduate workers in these disciplinary meetings.
We have filed three unfair labor practice charges against MIT with the National Labor Relations Board as a result of MIT’s violation of federal labor law (see question 3 below for more detail). We have also filed grievances against MIT for their violations of our contract (see question 4 below for more detail).
2. What is the status of the discipline cases?
As a result of our collective pressure, MIT has completely dropped disciplinary charges against three grad workers. In some of these cases, the charges were based on blatantly inaccurate information, including the discriminatory targeting of Palestinian students whose cases were dropped hastily when the students pushed back. In other cases, when pressed by stewards in disciplinary meetings, MIT admitted they had little to no evidence to substantiate their allegations. Clearly, the administration’s concern is not enforcing policy violations, but instead targeting vulnerable individuals in order to suppress campus protest. MIT’s decision to impose harsh discipline without proper evidence and without any due process is completely unacceptable, especially when the livelihoods, pay, housing, and visa status of disciplined workers are put into jeopardy as a result.
Through our collective pressure, we are happy to report that MIT has also dropped 11 interim suspensions. The resolved disciplinary cases have been resolved with warnings or probations, successfully avoiding permanent suspensions. Deportation was avoided for the graduate workers who were placed at risk of deportation. Our collective outrage at the sudden evictions from grad housing resulted in our coworker living with his young child to be allowed to stay.
While we have made huge strides in our fight, there is still more work to be done. Grad workers are owed thousands of dollars in backpay for the month that their pay was unjustly withheld; MIT has banned several union organizers from campus (in violation of our contract, Article 7 Section 1); and five graduate workers with unresolved cases are still facing unjust discipline, with two still facing interim suspensions.
3. How has MIT violated federal labor law and what are the unfair labor practice charges related to?
We have filed three unfair labor practice charges against MIT with the National Labor Relations Board. An unfair labor practice (ULP) is an act that violates federal labor law.
The unfair labor practice charges are as follows:
Unlawfully disciplining employees in retaliation for engaging in protected concerted activity and union activity in violation of Sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA);
MIT’s retaliatory actions against employees has an unlawful chilling effect on employees’ exercise of their Section 7 rights;
MIT’s retaliatory actions also constituted an unlawful unilateral change in terms and conditions of employment in violation of Sections 8(a)(1) and (5) of the NLRA.
Protected concerted activity entails two or more employees acting together to improve the terms and conditions of their employment. The unjustly disciplined employees were disciplined in retaliation for their involvement in peaceful protests demanding that MIT cut research and financial ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense due to its involvement in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Because MIT maintains research and financial ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, some of our research labor as graduate workers contributes directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Thus, these peaceful protests were related to the conditions of our employment as research assistants and are thus protected concerted activity. Our union membership made clear in April that this demand is an important and broadly-felt workplace issue by passing a resolution demanding that MIT cut research and financial ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
The MIT administration issued these interim suspensions to our coworkers in direct retaliation for their engagement in protected concerted activity. Under the National Labor Relations Act, it is unlawful for employers to discipline employees in retaliation for engaging in protected concerted activity. Furthermore, MIT issued this discipline in an attempt to discourage employee engagement in protected concerted activity, which is additionally unlawful. Lastly, the interim suspensions had immediate impacts on the workers’ employment and thus constituted an unlawful unilateral change in the terms and conditions of employment.
4. How has MIT violated our contract?
Thanks to our union contract, grad workers are protected from unfair and unjust discipline. Our contract states: “No employee shall be disciplined or discharged for matters arising out of their employment with MIT except for just cause” (Article 6 Section 1). This sentence requires that MIT can only issue discipline if it meets the “just cause” standard. The “just cause” standard is widely used across union contracts.
There are seven widely-accepted principles that discipline must meet in order to be considered “just.” The principles of just cause include: fair notice of the rule, prior enforcement of the rule, due process, substantial evidence, equal treatment of workers, progressive discipline, and taking into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances.
The discipline that MIT issued violated multiple principles of just cause, including (but not limited to):
Punitively issuing the interim suspensions without due process
Issuing discipline without substantial evidence
Treating different workers unequally when issuing discipline
The contract specifies that the union may grieve any discipline that is not purely academic in nature, and thus we assert our right to grieve since MIT issued discipline for workers engaging in protected concerted activity.
MIT has also banned several elected stewards, elected union officers, and union staff from campus, which is in direct violation of Article 7 Section 1 which permits union representatives to access campus for necessary union business. We have filed grievances on all of these matters, and the cases are ongoing.