Harvard Academic Workers Set Nov. 10 Strike Deadline

Harvard’s non-tenure-track teachers and researchers will walk out of classrooms and labs on Nov. 1o if their union does not reach a contract agreement with the University.

Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers announced the deadline on Oct. 19, after 51 bargaining sessions and two years of negotiations without a contract.

The union, which began bargaining for its contract in September 2024, voted to authorize a strike in July, months after its leaders called off a planned spring walkout amid low turnout in an earlier authorization vote. The deadline comes as the Harvard Graduate Students Union-UAW begins its second strike of the year on Tuesday and as Harvard’s dining workers weigh a walkout of their own.

Gregory J. Given, a preceptor in Expository Writing, said the deadline was a response to stalled progress rather than any single development at the table.

“We set the deadline not because of anything that has changed at the bargaining table. Really, what hasn’t changed at the bargaining table,” Given said. “It feels to us like significant movement towards an agreement has really slowed down.”

“We have made very significant moves over the last month, six weeks on our economic proposals, which is the majority of what is outstanding, and those moves have not been reciprocated,” he said.

Given said the union has cut some of its compensation proposals by as much as six or seven percentage points from its original demands, while the University has raised its offers by about half a percentage points in response.

In a statement, University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote that the two sides have reached tentative agreements on a number of issues, and are close on many others.

“Both sides are exchanging proposals in almost every bargaining session, narrowing the differences between them. We remain committed to the negotiations at the table and do not believe a strike is warranted or necessary,” he wrote.

The University’s most recent offer, made Oct. 19, included a 3.5 percent raise upon ratification and a 15.75 percent raise over six years.

The union’s main unresolved demands are higher wages, retirement benefits, expanded child care benefits, and protections against harassment and discrimination.

“The administration is denying all of our workers the raises that we should have had starting July 1, so none of us are getting raises until this contract goes into effect. So every single biweekly pay period that goes by, we’re getting less money in our pockets than we should have been getting,” Given said.

Given said time caps — Harvard policies that limit non-tenure-track appointments to two, three, or eight years, depending on the position — are another reason the union cannot wait. Though the two sides agreed more than a year ago on a framework to end the caps, according to the union, Harvard has continued to enforce them and refused the union’s repeated requests to suspend them. (Newton did not respond to a request for comment.)

“So, if we don’t have a contract in effect by January, they’re probably going to start running searches to replace the people who are being time capped out. that also is forcing our hand. That also means that we can’t wait here and makes a strike absolutely warranted,” Given said.

Given pointed to some progress at the table.

“For the teachers, the biggest movement, undoubtedly, that the administration has made is that they have agreed with us on a framework for a lecturer ladder in the future that would not have time caps,” Given said. “Workers teaching here would no longer be limited to an arbitrary limit of three or eight years based on what kind of job they’re in.”

If there is no agreement by 9 a.m. on Nov. 10, the union will call a strike of its bargaining unit, which includes 2,600 preceptors, lecturers, teaching assistants who are not graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers.

Courses that rely heavily on non-tenure-track instructors, including Expository Writing, Social Studies, and large introductory science classes, would be disrupted.

“If we go out on Nov. 10, I hope that we’re done on Nov. 10,” he said. “I hope we’re going back to work on the 11th.”

—Staff writer José Luis Ortega Castro can be reached at [email protected]