MIT Campus Police Association
Labor Relations Update 2009/ # 2
December 9, 2009
Earlier this year, we reported in our first edition of the Labor Relation Update that contract negotiations between the MIT Campus Police Union and MIT were stalled over salary and health care issues. Unfortunately, they remain stalled over these same issues. Donning the threadbare robe of a pauper, MIT asserts at the bargaining table that it has been victimized by the national recession and rendered unable to afford reasonable salary and health insurance proposals from the Association. However, the role of victim does not well suit MIT. While crying poverty, it maintains vast financial reserves worth billions of dollars. While it pleads for concessions by its rank and file employees, it has recently lavished its already highly paid executives with staggeringsalary increasesfor one year ranging from a “low” of 100% to ahigh of 365%.[1]
These wildly generous salary increases awarded to its highest paid executives belie any claim that MIT may make over an inability to fairly pay its police officers. Indeed, to MIT the current economic climate means only that its plentiful financial reserves will show a short term reduction in paper value; as reflected by the generosity of executive pay increases there is hardly cause for serious long-term concern. To the rank and file employee, the economic downturn has for more serious consequences. For some, it means that mortgage payments cannot be made. For others, decision-making is forced between paying for the family’s food or the family’s clothing when there is not enough to pay for both. For all, it has produced a heavy layer of anxiety that weighs heavily and indiscriminately on their daily lives.
In short, as a matter of essential fairness, the current economic climate calls for MIT to sustain its rank and file employees with reasonable pay increases rather than forcing the brunt of the recession onto their shoulders. How MIT responds to this call will say a great deal about its character as an institution and the ethics of its leadership. If you agree that MIT is ethically obligated to treat its police officers fairly please call or e-mail its decision-makers whose contact information is listed on the reverse side of this Update. Also, please look soon for our Labor Relations Update # 3 which will trace the programmed erosionby MIT of critically important health insurance benefits, not only for police officers, but also for all MIT employees.
Please contact the following MIT leadership personnel and demand that MIT bring the current police negotiations to a prompt and fair conclusion:
Susan Hockfield, President, (617-253-0148) ()
Alison Alden, Vice President (617-253-6512) ()
John DiFava, Director of Facilities, Operations and Facilities and Chief of Police (617-252-1703) ()
Marianna Pierce, Director of Labor and Employee Relations (617-253-4268) (
Jonathan E. Barnes, Manager of Labor Relations (617-258-8716) ()
[1]Kudos to MIT’s student newspaper, The Tech, for this salary exposé in its November 17, 2009 edition. For many of the executives, these increases represent raises of more than $100,000 annually. Otherwise stated, for approximately half of the single year increase paid to a single executive, MIT could have funded a 3.5% increase for every member of the Association’s bargaining unit for a whole year.