HGSU-UAW Strike Becomes Longest in Union History as Harvard Holds Firm at Bargaining Table

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers plans to picket through Commencement after its 27th bargaining session with Harvard ended Thursday without a contract, pushing the walkout into its 31st day — the longest strike in the union’s history.

In an email sent two days before Thursday’s session, HGSU-UAW told the University it would consider a membership vote to end the strike if Harvard moved on five core issues: paid immigration leave, an agency shop, a grievance process for harassment and discrimination, paid medical leave, and pay parity between teaching fellows and research assistants.

University representatives held firm on two of those demands Thursday, declining to advance proposals on an agency shop or a union-supervised grievance process for Title IX cases, according to HGSU-UAW president Denish K. Jaswal. Harvard’s lawyers told the union the prior week that they were “considering” the grievance proposal but were not prepared to make a counteroffer.

On the remaining three issues, the University signaled limited openness. Harvard rejected the union’s paid immigration leave proposal, but indicated it might discuss paid medical and family leave for non-citizen graduate students. Representatives also raised the possibility of bringing teaching fellow pay closer to research assistant levels — the first time the University has engaged on pay parity, Jaswal said.

“They did indicate some movements that they could make on pay parity — bringing TFs up to comparable monthly pay to RAs — which is the first time we’ve heard from them on that issue,” Jaswal said. “For all of these things, they didn’t have any concrete proposals to give to us, so we couldn’t actually go back and forth.”

Harvard also re-opened an article on titles and classifications, which University representatives described to Jaswal as “housekeeping changes.” The move comes 11 months after Harvard removed roughly 900 research-based stipend students from the bargaining unit in July.

Jaswal called the proposal “disingenuous.”

“What they are trying to do with the changes that they propose is to bolster their case for the carve out of the nearly a thousand RAs that they illegally removed from union protections last summer,” she said. “They’ve had 14 months if they wanted to talk about this issue to bring it up.”

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that the University “has continued to engage at the bargaining table through 27 sessions” and that a package proposal Harvard offered at the May 14 session was made in “a good-faith effort to move the two sides closer to an agreement.”

“We appreciate that HGSU-UAW’s bargaining team has continued to consider elements of that proposal and remain optimistic that there is a path forward for resolving the differences that remain,” he added.

The union formally rejected the package proposal in its email to the University, writing that the offer “basically rejected all of our articles and made some small progress on appointment letters and other things that were not in our core issue set,” according to Jaswal.

The strike has now stretched on longer than HGSU-UAW’s 29-day walkout in December 2019, which also ended without an initial contract. Since the current strike began five weeks ago — 15 months into the bargaining process — the two sides have met three times.

Office of Labor and Employee Relations administrative coordinator Stephanie M. Cambra emailed the union’s bargaining committee an hour before the May 14 session to propose an additional three-hour meeting on May 21, the only time Harvard has offered to add a session since the strike began.

HGSU-UAW vice president Evan R. Lemire claimed the University was deliberately declining to meet more frequently.

“The Harvard administration that we’re dealing with now is different than ones that the union dealt with in the past,” Lemire said. “I think that they have a high pain tolerance, and that they’re trying to wait us out.”

Lemire said the May 21 session was also the first at which Harvard acknowledged the strike directly. “We have withdrawn our labor, and we know that that has mattered to Harvard,” he said. “It’s just a matter of how long they’re willing to hold out for.”

Thursday marked the first day for the union’s new leadership team, which was elected 22 days into the strike. Jaswal, who has worked with HGSU since 2018, said she felt “incredibly humbled and honored” to take the presidency.

Though the union’s leadership operates on triennial terms, Jaswal is the fourth president since the last election. Evan C. MacKay ’19 was elected in 2023 but stepped down to run for the Massachusetts State House. Bailey A. Plaman took over in late 2023 and resigned eight months later, when outgoing president Sara V. Speller assumed the role.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for May 29, the day after Commencement. If no deal is reached, the two sides will meet again on June 9 and June 23.

“If Harvard doesn’t hear us at the bargaining table, then they will hear us at Commencement,” Jaswal said.

In a Thursday press release, the union also announced that they have called on several speakers from Commencement and Class Day ceremonies — including comedian Conan C. O’Brien ’85, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07, and former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — to join their picket line and boycott the ceremonies in solidarity.

Lemire said he hoped the University would propose additional sessions before the ceremony.

“I sincerely hope that the University comes to the table before Commencement and offers us movement really on any of our core issues,” Lemire said. “In the absence of that, yes, we will still be on strike and still be engaging in strike activities on Commencement.”

—Staff writer Wyeth Renwick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @wzrenwick.

—Staff writer Claire L. Simon can be reached at [email protected] and Signal at csimon.13. Follow her on X @ClaireSimon.