The Labor and Employment Action Project (LEAP) at Harvard Law School is a student-run organization at Harvard University that promotes the unionization of Harvard’s workforce and works to advance pro-union policies at the university and across the country.

Background

The Labor and Employment Action Project at Harvard Law School is a student-run organization at Harvard University. ¹ It is managed by an organizing committee of Harvard Law students and receives funding from Harvard’s Office of Community Engagement, Equity and Belonging according to allocations determined by a Student Funding Board. ^{2 3}

LEAP works closely with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), Unite Here and other unions that represent or are attempting to represent workers at Harvard. ⁴

Advocacy at Harvard

Union Organizing

Labor and Employment Action Project supports the unionization of Harvard faculty, staff, student workers, and contractors. ⁵

It supported the creation of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, and backed a 2019 strike led by the union. ⁶

It supports attempts to create the Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers (HAW-UAW) union to represent 3,100 non-tenure-track professors, lecturers, teaching and research assistants, research scientists, fellows, instructors and other academic employees involved in teaching or research. ⁷ One of the prospective union’s primary goals is to eliminate Harvard’s policies that limit non-tenure-track faculty members to just eight years of employment, which Harvard’s leadership contends is an important tool to ensure that there is a constant influx of new educators with new ideas and techniques into the university. ⁸

LEAP advocates for Harvard to prohibit law firms that require mandatory arbitration agreements, nondisclosure agreements regarding workplace discrimination or harassment, or class-action waivers from using campus facilities in their recruiting of Harvard Law students. ⁹

2020 Pandemic Employment Policies

During the COVID-19 pandemic when Harvard University was largely closed and many employees were not able to remotely perform their jobs, LEAP pushed the university to compensate its laid off or furloughed employees beyond its legal obligations. ¹⁰

A LEAP-organized petition called for Harvard to provide full paid leave for employees, subcontractors and temporary workers during the Spring 2020 semester. ¹¹ The university had offered 30 days paid leave for all employees who could not perform their jobs remotely, such as cafeteria workers organized by the Unite Here Local 26 labor union. ¹²

LEAP claimed victory in getting Harvard to include contract workers in the 30-day leave program, which the university originally had not planned to do. ¹³ These workers included unionized employees of other firms, such as security guards employed by Swedish firm Securitas and represented by 32BJ SEIU. ¹⁴

In March 2020, Harvard announced that it would continue providing wages and benefits to all workers, including part-time and contract employees, through the end of the semester on May 28, 2020. ¹⁵

Advocacy Outside Harvard

Labor and Employment Action Project members provide volunteer assistance to efforts to unionize Amazon’s employees, and have been active in working with the Amazon Labor Union to file a series of unfair labor practices complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. ¹⁶

LEAP supports the SEIU-funded “Fight for $15” campaign to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour and increase unionization among service-industry employees. ¹⁷

In 2011, LEAP organized a student boycott against a Boston-area pizza chain frequently patronized by Harvard students that had been cited and fined by the government for labor law violations, including not paying workers for overtime. ¹⁸ The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy the next year. ¹⁹

1. “LEAP @ HLS.” Harvard Law School Student Organizations. Accessed March 6, 2024. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/leap/.
2. “Student Funding Board.” Harvard Law School, August 5, 2022. https://hls.harvard.edu/student-life/office-of-community-engagement-equity-and-belonging/finances-for-student-orgs-and-journals/student-funding-board/.
3. “About.” LEAP @ HLS, August 25, 2019. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/leap/about/.
4. “Organizing the South: The Union of Southern Service Workers.” Center for Labor and a Just Economy, November 2, 2023. https://clje.law.harvard.edu/events/organizing-the-south-the-union-of-southern-service-workers/.
5. “LEAP @ HLS.” Harvard Law School Student Organizations. Accessed March 6, 2024. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/leap/.
6. “HLS Student Organization Letter in Support of the HGSU Strike Authorization Vote.” Harvard Law Record, October 24, 2019. https://hlrecord.org/hls-student-organization-letter-in-support-of-the-hgsu-strike-authorization-vote/.
7. “President and Fellows of Harvard College.” National Labor Relations Board, March 4, 2024. https://www.nlrb.gov/case/01-RC-336990.
8. Gibson, Lydialyle. “Academic Workers Rally for Union Recognition.” Harvard Magazine, February 15, 2023. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/02/academic-workers-rally-for-union-recognition.
9. Wheeler, Ryan. “Harvard Law School Calls to End the Secrecy on Harassment and Discrimination.” Coworker.org, November 2018. https://www.coworker.org/petitions/hls-stop-allowing-firms-to-sweep-sexual-harassment-and-other-abusive-practices-under-the-rug.
10. Antonyan, Davit, and Kelsey J. Griffin. “Petition Calls on Harvard to Pay Workers for the Rest of the Semester.” The Harvard Crimson, March 24, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/24/worker-pay-petition-coronavirus/.
11. Antonyan, Davit, and Kelsey J. Griffin. “Petition Calls on Harvard to Pay Workers for the Rest of the Semester.” The Harvard Crimson, March 24, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/24/worker-pay-petition-coronavirus/.
12. Doyle, Terrence. “Harvard Agrees to Compensate Furloughed Contract Dining and Catering Workers.” Eater Boston, March 27, 2020. https://boston.eater.com/2020/3/27/21197182/harvard-compensating-furloughed-dining-hall-contract-workers-covid-19-pandemic.
13. Kohnert-Yount, Vail. “Under Worker and Student Pressure, Harvard Reverses Course and Agrees to Pay Dining, Custodial, and Other Workers during the COVID-19 Crisis.” LEAP @ HLS, March 27, 2020. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/leap/2020/03/27/under-worker-and-student-pressure-harvard-reverses-course-and-agrees-to-pay-dining-custodial-and-other-workers-during-the-covid-19-crisis/.
14. Antonyan, Davit, and James S. Bikalyes. “Subcontracted Guards Decry Lack of Comparable Emergency Benefits to Harvard Employees after Coronavirus Closes Campus Facilities.” The Harvard Crimson, March 24, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/24/coronavirus-lack-comparable-pay/.
15. Bolotnikova, Marina N. “What Happens to Harvard’s Workers?” Harvard Magazine, April 27, 2020. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/03/what-happens-to-harvard-s-workers.
16. Pruden, Katie, and Amba Guerguerian. “A Union Law Firm Like No Other.” The Indypendent, November 2022. https://indypendent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Indypendent-Issue-275-Opt.pdf.
17. “Fast Food Workers Fight for $15 Minimum Wage.” Harvard Political Review, April 15, 2015. https://harvardpolitics.com/fighting-15/.
18. Seiler, Joey. “Student Groups Launch Upper Crust Boycott.” Harvard Law Record, February 24, 2011. https://hlrecord.org/student-groups-launch-upper-crust-boycott/.
19. Abelson, Jenn. “Upper Crust Files for Bankruptcy.” BostonGlobe.com, October 9, 2012. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/10/08/upper-crust-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/7tlWOyjv4UXECJPOhI2wPP/story.html.