A Year Into Contract Talks, Harvard and Its Grad Union Remain Still Divided on Key Demands

A year into contract negotiations, Harvard has rejected or refused to engage with nearly all of the graduate student union’s major proposals, leaving the two sides with just one agreement as the union’s first economic demands hit the table.

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers has spent months pushing the University to accept independent pathways for harassment and discrimination cases, safeguards for non-citizen workers, and a dues structure that would require all represented workers to pay union fees.

Harvard has rebuffed each of those demands, and has not responded to several articles the union first presented eight months ago.

“That’s a glacially slow pace for attorneys that comprise the bargaining committee who are paid thousands of thousands of dollars every year to do precisely this work,” bargaining committee member Denish K. Jaswal said.

The stalemate comes as the union introduced its first economic package this month, proposing a 12 percent wage increase and a nearly $1 million expansion to its benefits fund.

But union leaders say the non-economic articles Harvard has stalled on are just as urgent — particularly as the Trump administration maintains its pressure on universities.

After the administration threatened to revoke Harvard’s authorization to host international students, non-citizen worker protections became a central priority for the union. The most recent version of its proposal would protect student workers from termination for up to 150 days if they lose authorization and require the University to assist in their return to the United States.

Harvard has previously said that it has given millions of dollars toward union-administered funds, including HGSU’s assistance program for international workers. Last June, a University spokesperson said Harvard had made $2.75 million available that year across the union’s funds, distributed at members’ discretion.

The union is also pressing Harvard to give all workers year-round access to benefits and the legal fund, which is currently unavailable to international graduate students detained by immigration enforcement.

“We’ve got folks who are, like $14,000 at least, in debt, having to keep immigration lawyers on retainer, and they’re not even making that much a semester to teach a two section course,” HGSU-UAW President Sara Speller said.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the union’s claims about workers’ immigration-related debt.

Another flashpoint has been the union’s demand to enshrine independent grievance procedures in the contract — pathways that would allow workers to pursue harassment and discrimination claims outside of the University’s existing Title IX processes.

HGSU-UAW Vice President Sudipta Saha said the provisions would give workers a choice between Harvard-run processes and those outlined in the contract.

“I think that we hear often is student workers may not trust the University to be a neutral investigator,” he said. “And so this process allows there to be a process where the University isn't the only entity that has a say on what happened.”

Harvard has repeatedly rejected the proposals, pointing to its current Title IX policies. University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on Monday, instead referring The Crimson to a June statement asserting that Harvard’s proposal “is aligned with the University’s position that the Non-Discrimination, Anti-Bullying, and Title IX policies are the appropriate processes for these concerns.”

Jaswal pointed to Harvard’s closure of diversity offices at the College and its decision to end a decades-old research symposium as evidence that University protections can disappear under political pressure. She said the union wants to ensure that “Harvard at the end of it is not the judge jury executioner in these cases.”

“If we don’t codify and clarify our protections in the contract, there’s nothing that prevents Harvard from using our rights as bargaining chips with the Trump administration,” she added.

The union has also proposed maintaining access to health insurance and housing for students placed on involuntary mental health leave and creating a lab transition program for graduate students needing to switch labs.

“It’s been incredibly insulting to go to them and share stories of student workers over an issue that they know we have continued to experience and to be faced with rejection after rejection of our proposals,” Jaswal said.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the union’s proposals on health insurance, housing access, and lab transitions.

The union is again pushing for an agency shop — a provision that would require all workers in the bargaining unit either to join the union and pay dues or, if they decline membership, to pay agency fees. Union leaders say the additional revenue would fund contract enforcement and other union expenses.

Harvard has rejected an agency shop in each of the union’s previous two contracts. Newton declined to comment on the issue, pointing instead to a June statement in which Harvard said it was committed to protecting student workers’ “freedom of choice regarding joining or paying fees to a union as a condition of employment.”

Lawal connected Harvard’s opposition to its decision last year to remove 900 graduate students from the bargaining unit, casting both as part of a broader effort to delegitimize student workers as employees.

“It’s clear that Harvard doesn’t think we’re real workers who deserve a union, because they’re directly taking away union rights and protections from our workers,” she said.

Speller argued that the University’s approach at the bargaining table has not matched the quality of work it expects from its graduate students.

“The moves that the University’s administration has seemed to be making don’t reflect a desire for their teaching and research student workers to be able to do their jobs well,” she said.

As negotiations enter their second year, Speller said the union’s demands on wages and worker protections were necessary for Harvard to remain competitive with peer institutions — several of which have already granted their graduate unions agency shop and stronger grievance procedures.

“I would love to see the University consider putting some of that enormous wealth that they are saving for a rainy day,” she said. “We’re in a rainy day right now.”

“The message I think about when it comes to bargaining is you can’t rest on your name forever,” she added.

Corrections: Feb. 26, 2026

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the union’s agency shop proposal would require all workers to pay union dues. In fact, the proposal would require workers either to join the union and pay dues or to pay agency fees if they decline membership.

A previous version of this article misspelled Denish Jaswal’s name in some references.

—Staff writer Taylor M. Bierwerth can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @tmbierwerth.

—Staff writer Noah A. Ferris can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @noahaferris.