More Than 100 Faculty Commit to Not Replacing Striking Workers

More than 100 Harvard faculty affiliates have signed a letter agreeing not to hire replacements for striking graduate students in a marked show of support for HGSU-UAW as its strike continues into the weekend.

The letter’s signatories — including both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty — also committed to “not retaliate against” workers in HGSU-UAW, who are currently striking, and those in Harvard’s non-tenure-track faculty union, HAW-UAW, whose strike authorization vote is currently open.

In an April 3 email to departments’ Directors of Undergraduate Studies, obtained by The Crimson, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Gillian B. Pierce ’88 said that course heads could hire instructional staff to complete striking workers’ tasks — and that hired workers would receive additional pay. Teaching assistants, non-tenure-track faculty, non-striking course assistants and teaching fellows, and non-union staff could serve as potential replacements, pending approval from the Office of Undergraduate Education, Pierce wrote.

”Course heads may hire instructional staff to do the work the strike is leaving undone,” Pierce wrote.

HGSU-UAW’s strike occurs at a moment of particular precarity for graduate laborers nationwide. Harvard workers are on an economic strike, according to HGSU-UAW President Sara V. Speller — not an unfair labor practice strike — likely hoping to minimize interactions with a Republican-skewed National Labor Relations Board. Last year, organizers withdrew a pending ULP charge against Harvard for the same reason.

That means workers lose some legal protections they had during their 2021 strike. Under the National Labor Relations Act, only ULP strikers are entitled to have their jobs back at strike’s end. While the distinction may not be entirely relevant for graduate students, who are unlikely to be booted from the University, it poses an additional hurdle for organizers navigating a thorny legal terrain.

In the letter, faculty wrote that Harvard administrators had asked program directors, chairs, and ladder faculty to replace striking workers with new hires. While Pierce’s April 3 message noted the possibility of hiring replacements, it did not ask faculty to do so. Three department chairs confirmed they had not been asked to hire strikebreakers.

The letter argues that the strike’s burden “should fall squarely on the administration, not the faculty, as it is the Harvard administration who holds the power to negotiate in good faith.”

“We refuse to mitigate the effects of any strike in this way because we know that strong contracts will benefit our students and colleagues and will make Harvard a better place to teach, learn, and research,” read the letter read, which was circulated before students began striking.

Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors also advised against hiring replacement laborers in a Sunday email to members.

”Strikes are meant to disrupt business as usual; anything you do to lessen the disruptive impact of the strike will diminish its effectiveness,” organizers wrote.