Event Details
32BJ of the Service Employees International Union
MEDIA ADVISORY for: 3:30 PM, Tuesday, July 21, 2026
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Frank Soults, (860) 471-5692, FSoults@seiu32bj.org
MIT workers will march to President Kornbluth’s office to demand a fair union contract
In protest of the university’s hardline bargaining, workers will deliver a petition demanding a fair contract for 600 MIT facilities workers represented by 32BJ SEIU
WHO:Members of 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) employed as custodians, desk attendants, groundskeepers, maintenance mechanics, and craftspeople such as electricians, plumbers, HVAC mechanics, locksmiths and others.MIT Graduate Student’s Union representatives, elected officials, and others will also attend.
WHAT:March to the office of MIT President Sally Kornbluth to deliver a petition calling for bargaining in good faith on a family-sustaining wage increase, lower healthcare premiums, free access to the union’s legal and training fund, and job protections for immigrant workers.
WHERE: Gathering at McDermott Court (behind buildings 56 and 18)
March to President Sally Kornbulth’s Office (building 7)
MIT Campus
Cambridge, MA 02139
WHEN:3:30 PM, Tuesday, July 21
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –After MIT administrators proposed freezing the pay of some MIT facilities workers for a year and increasing the wages of the rest by just fifty cents an hour, a bargaining committee representing about 600 workers who belong to 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) decided to bring their demands directly to MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
On Tuesday, July 21 at 3:30, the bargaining committee will be joined by about 100 of their coworkers and supporters in a march from McDermott Court to the President’s Office to deliver a petition signed by over 300 facilities workers – including custodians, desk attendants, groundskeepers, maintenance mechanics, craftspeople, and others –demanding fair consideration of their bargaining proposals. These include a wage increase that brings all workers closer to a living wage, the reduction of exorbitant healthcare premiums, the adoption of the union’s free training and legal fund, and job protections for immigrant workers.
Since the opening of bargaining on May 22, the union has met four times with administrators without making headway on the workers’ proposals. The facilities workers' previous contract expired at the beginning of July and has not been extended.
“We go out of our way to help maintain this campus all the time,” said MIT electrician and bargaining committee member Jim Bradford. “And yet while many of us are struggling to put food on the table, all that the university has offered us is basically a slap in the face.”
“Our members recognize that MIT must endure the same governmental hostility that has impacted funding at major research institutions across the country,” said Kevin Brown, 32BJ SEIU Executive Vice President and the head of the union in Massachusetts. “But MIT has greater resources per student than most American universities, including Harvard, which means that it certainly has the means to address that hard economic issues also affecting the workers who keep their campus running every day. If the administration’s high-paid attorneys don’t want to acknowledge those workers’ needs at the bargaining table, we are hopeful that this delegation will convince President Kornbluth to consider the workers’ petition and take a different attitude.”
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With over 190,000 members in 12 states and Washington, D.C.-- including 22,000 in Massachusetts and Rhode Island-- 32BJ SEIU is the largest property service workers’ union in the country.