Harvard Grad Student Union Set to Strike Tuesday as Last Bargaining Session Yields Little Movement

Harvard’s graduate student union is set to strike Tuesday morning after a Monday bargaining session — the last scheduled before the union’s midnight deadline — sidestepped the economic issues at the center of the dispute.

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers told members in a Monday evening email to “expect to be on strike” as of 6 a.m. Tuesday. Union leaders are convening Monday night to formally confirm the walkout, but said only substantial progress toward a contract would prompt them to call it off.

Lindsey E. Adams, an at-large member of the HGSU-UAW bargaining committee, said Monday’s one-hour session had “no bearing” on the union’s decision to strike.

“Our graduate student workers will be on strike following a disappointing bargaining session where Harvard did not engage with us on most of our core issues,” Adams said.

The session steered clear of wages and other economic articles that have driven more than 15 months of bargaining. The union presented counters on non-citizen worker protections, academic retaliation, grievance and arbitration, and appointment letters. Harvard countered only on appointment letters.

The two parties came close to agreement on appointment letter language, Adams said, with a handful of items still under internal review by the University. The union and Harvard also made progress on grievance and arbitration, with HGSU-UAW accepting the University’s proposed 35-business-day window to file grievances and adding a non-retaliation notice drawn from existing Harvard HR policy.

HGSU-UAW dropped several provisions on non-citizen worker protections that Harvard had objected to as falling outside the scope of labor bargaining — a central union priority as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on international students.

But the union reasserted its demand that workers forced to leave the country mid-appointment over immigration issues be guaranteed rehiring upon return, along with language restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to campus without a judicial warrant.

Adams said Harvard did not commit to additional bargaining times before the strike deadline. The next scheduled session is April 28 — one week into the strike.

“There was no discussion of the union’s core issues that would have prevented a strike,” Adams said.

A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Union membership authorized the strike on April 1 with 95.8 percent of ballots cast in favor, following a four-week voting period. The bargaining committee set the April 21 deadline 10 days later, citing Harvard’s refusal to engage on wages, non-citizen worker protections, and third-party arbitration in harassment and discrimination cases.

A strike would mark the third walkout in HGSU-UAW’s history. Graduate student workers struck for five weeks in 2019 without securing an initial contract, and staged a three-day strike in 2021 before reaching a tentative agreement weeks later.

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