Striking Graduate Workers March Through Harvard Yard, Deliver Petition to Mass. Hall

More than 200 demonstrators marched through Harvard Yard Tuesday afternoon and delivered a petition signed by more than 4,000 student workers to Massachusetts Hall, hours after Harvard’s graduate students began their second strike of the year.

Members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers rallied outside the Science Center before marching through the Yard, banging on plastic buckets and shouting slogans. Demonstrators gathered on the steps of Widener Library before circling Massachusetts Hall, where union leaders delivered the petition to a University official.

HGSU president Denish K. Jaswal and vice president Evan R. Lemire read the petition aloud before handing it over. Addressed to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and Provost John F. Manning ’82, the letter pressed University administrators to meet the union’s demands.

“Our labor makes Harvard work,” Jaswal and Lemire said in unison, reading from the petition.

The demonstration marked the first day of the union’s second walkout of the year. HGSU members went on strike at midnight Tuesday, nearly five months after ending a 40-day strike — the longest in the union’s history — without a new contract.

Undergraduate students also joined the demonstration. Flora Vaught ’30, a member of the Student Labor Action Movement, encouraged fellow undergraduates to rally in support of the union.

“When we all shout together, Harvard cannot ignore our voices,” Vaught said in a speech to union demonstrators. “If you really care about your students’ education, listen up and stop exploiting your workers.”