Posts tagged Harvard
USC faculty groups vote to unionize and university vows to challenge it
June 7, 2026 // Not all eligible USC faculty have been supportive. The effort drew opposition from full-time non-tenure faculty at the Gould School of Law, who said in spring that they were “unanimously opposed to the effort to include us.” The group cited American Bar Assn. accreditation standards that it said already provided workers with protections “reasonably similar to tenure” and encouraged law faculty to remain out of university unions. Some professors in pharmacy, engineering and education schools also publicly opposed unionizing.
Labor Watch: Harvard Grad Students End 40-Day Strike
June 3, 2026 // he Harvard Graduate Students Union announced Monday that its 40-day strike has ended “with the close of the academic year,” though the union has still not reached a bargaining agreement with the university. The strike—the longest in the union’s history—spanned the end-of-semester grading period and university commencement, which wrapped on Friday. Over the last several weeks, the university offered to expand benefits to all graduate student workers, provide dental coverage for Ph.D. students and increase its four-year raise proposal by 1 percent, the union said in a news release. These moves were the “first indication of engagement” from the university on the union’s priorities, the release said.
HGSU-UAW Strike Becomes Longest in Union History as Harvard Holds Firm at Bargaining Table
May 28, 2026 // 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.
Boston Mayor Withdraws From Harvard Law Commencement Amid Grad Student Strike
May 28, 2026 // Boston mayor Michelle Wu withdrew from speaking at a Harvard Law School commencement event Wednesday after learning that striking graduate student workers had plans to picket the event. Wu, who graduated from Harvard Law in 2012, was scheduled to speak at the law school’s Class Day, held the day before commencement. According to a Harvard Law spokesperson, the Harvard Graduate Student Union reached out to Wu to discourage her from participating in the event.
Grad Students Rally Outside Garber’s Home as Strike Enters Third Week
May 11, 2026 // A small group of striking graduate student workers rallied outside Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76’s private residence early Friday morning, marking a new escalation in the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers’ ongoing strike as contract negotiations with the University remain stalled. Roughly 10 demonstrators gathered outside Garber’s home from about 6 to 6:30 a.m., chanting and writing “CONTRACT NOW” in pink chalk on the sidewalk. The group represented a small fraction of HGSU-UAW, which represents roughly 5,000 graduate student workers.
Thousands of Harvard University graduate students go on strike
April 21, 2026 // Their demands include fair pay and raises that keep up with inflation, protections for non-citizen workers, and external processes with third-party arbitration for cases of harassment, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. HGSU is made up of 4,000 workers.
Harvard Police Union Accuses University of Withholding Information
September 18, 2025 // The Harvard University Police Association’s complaint stems from a dispute last April between HUPD Captain John F. Fulkerson and former detective Kelsey L. Whelihan over the handling of a reported sexual assault between a Harvard undergraduate and non-student. After she said that Fulkerson mishandled the sexual assault case, Whelihan left the department this March. The University launched an investigation into the procedural handling of the response after the officers’ dispute — contracting investigators from the Ed Davis Company, a Boston-based private security firm, to compile the report. But when the HUPA requested a copy of the report in October, the University refused.
‘Harder for All of Us’: Confusion Reigns After Harvard Excludes 900 Grad Students From Union
August 19, 2025 // Lindsey E. Adams, a Ph.D. student in Harvard’s virology program, opened her pay stub on July 1 to a strange sight: Her research stipend was no longer listed as a union stipend, and no union dues were deducted from her pay. But nothing about Adams’ job was different — not her hours, not her supervisor, not the lab where she works or the tasks she completes every day. “My work day-to-day has not changed at all,” she said. Adams was one of the more than 900 students on research-based stipends removed from Harvard’s graduate student union’s bargaining unit in July shortly after the union’s second contract with the University expired.
Commentary: To Harvard and Back with Julie Su
August 18, 2025 // This year, Julie Su, Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of labor, became a resident fellow with Harvard’s Kennedy School, Institute of Politics. The Century Foundation also brought Su on board as a full-time senior fellow. These prestigious institutions seem to have overlooked key events in Su’s long career. Harvard, where Su, a Stanford grad, earned her law degree, hails the Biden nominee as “a nationally recognized workers’ rights and civil rights expert.” As California’s labor commissioner, Su was “widely credited with a renaissance in enforcement and creative approaches to combating wage theft and protecting immigrant workers.” In reality, her experience was a bit more extensive.
Commentary: Ivy Leaguers Aren’t Auto Workers
July 21, 2025 // In general, NLRB decisions are fake law made by fake judges who have to interpret a poorly written statute from 90 years ago that is based on assumptions about industrial organization that no longer obtain in the United States. But the NLRB remains powerful nonetheless, and its decisions matter. That’s why Russell Burgett, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, which is private, is asking the NLRB to overturn the 2016 Columbia ruling. He isn’t a member of the Cornell graduate students’ union, a UE affiliate, and he said in charges filed with the NLRB on Monday that his choice not to join makes it harder for him to complete his education.