On December 3, thousands of graduate and undergraduate student-workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers went on strike. Bundled in winter coats and sporting “UAW On Strike” signs, strikers picketed, marched, and rallied in falling snow and pouring rain. For nearly four weeks, HGSU-UAW withheld grading, research, and teaching; disrupted deliveries, trash collection, and construction; and built worker power with local and national unions to show the university administration that student-workers would continue to organize and fight until they won a fair contract.
However, their historic fight for economic justice transcends personal gain; the strike holds extraordinary potential to interrogate the culture of academia itself. Through a bold reimagining of labor and work in the university context, a call for widespread political education, and the mobilization of community allies, HGSU-UAW ’s strike has proven that collective action can change university structures. Though the fight is not over, at Harvard, a student-worker strike has the power to challenge the institution’s status-quo.
Why Strike?
Before HGSU-UAW authorized the strike in late October 2019, the union and the University’s bargaining teams had met for 28 negotiating sessions since bargaining began in October 2018. From petition deliveries to rallies and work-ins to occupations, the union tried every escalatory tactic before calling for a strike authorization vote in the hopes of reaching an agreement. When the University refused to hear the union’s demands, thousands of student-workers were forced to strike, forgoing weeks of pay.
While student-workers felt that a strike was necessary to win a fair contract, the Harvard administration believed that the strike was “unnecessary.” In a university-wide email, Provost Alan Garber insisted that “strikes are adversarial by design.” Meanwhile, the University declined to negotiate further before the December 3 strike deadline, only met with the union once during the duration of the strike, and continues to stonewall HGSU-UAW’s main demands.
The three biggest concerns that have framed HGSU-UAW’s fight for an equitable contract are protections from discrimination and harassment, affordable healthcare, and fair pay. On the first issue, student-workers are calling for a fair mechanism to address issues of discrimination and harassment: a neutral third-party grievance procedure. This grievance procedure would eliminate the conflicts of interest in the university-controlled Title IX and Office of Dispute Resolution processes, which often fail survivors of sexual assault and students of color experiencing unfair treatment and abuse. This is timely: according to the 2019 climate survey on sexual assault and misconduct, disclosures of sexual and gender-based harassment increased by 55 percent over the previous year. In addition, unlike in university-controlled offices, it would apply unambiguously to all types of discrimination and harassment, including complaints on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability and other marginalized identities. While the administration may imply that a grievance procedure would replace existing Title IX processes, this is not true; it would uphold and surpass federal Title IX regulations.
In an interview with the HPR, Ege Yumusak ’16, a third-year Ph.D. student in philosophy at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the HGSU-UAW Bargaining Committee, spoke to the urgency of these demands. “A third party grievance procedure has proven to give survivors a lifeline to stay in their programs in other universities. … When the administration says, ‘We care about sexual harassment’ and can’t agree to a fair optional process, it makes manifest a dire situation: This university is not willing to protect those of us whose existence in the academic workplace is the most precarious. For many, that’s what our strike was about.”
In addition to demanding just recourse for discrimination and harassment, HGSU-UAW is calling on the University to provide better healthcare and wages. As it stands, many student-workers are unable to afford specialist and mental healthcare as well as dependent care for their families. Some are unable to afford their rent and are barely paid minimum wage. Yet instead of working to reach a fair agreement on these vital issues, throughout the strike, the administration spent thousands of dollars on police details, sacrificed educational quality by canceling exams and replacing finals with scantrons, and threatened student workers with retaliation.
While tensions between HGSU-UAW and the administration continued to escalate throughout the strike, the strike had undeniable consequences on the ongoing struggle for a contract: both sides signed six new tentative agreements that will protect student-workers’ rights. In addition, the University committed to begin federal mediation on January 7 to attempt to reach an agreement within the month. Citing these victories, HGSU-UAW ended the strike on January 1 and returned to work with hopes of not only winning a fair contract but also changing the culture of academia as a whole, both through the power of the strike and the material gains of a contract.
Becoming Class Conscious
According to federal law, graduate and undergraduate student-workers occupy a contentious space as workers. In September 2019, the National Labor Relations Board proposed a rule that would revoke the employee status of students undertaking academic work. The NLRB’s justification for this rule hinges on the belief that, since graduate and undergraduate student-workers are primarily on campus to learn and not to work, they should not be classified as employees. This rationalization obscures the consequences brought on by the rapid corporatization of the University and the reality of student-workers’ lives: increased workloads, financial difficulties, and poor job opportunities after graduation. By striking, HGSU’s members reaffirmed themselves as workers who deserve workers’ rights. At the heart of HGSU’s fight for a fair contract, then, is a call to action, a reckoning, and a recognition that Harvard works because its student-workers do.
The strike kindled these flames of class consciousness by drawing HGSU-UAW workers into the larger labor community, both inside and outside Harvard. Throughout the strike, workers from all of Harvard’s unions — UNITE HERE Local 26, Service Employees International Union 32BJ, and the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers — joined HGSU-UAW on the picket line. On the first day of the strike, union representatives and shop stewards from those unions spoke at a mid-day rally, voicing their support for HGSU-UAW as fellow Harvard workers. Through the sense of solidarity forged by the strike, the lineage of labor struggle at Harvard became clear, from the 2001 occupation of Massachusetts Hall to call for a living wage to the 2016 dining hall workers strike. HGSU-UAW’s strike is a continuation of this rich history.
In addition to building labor power at Harvard, the strike mobilized student-workers by connecting them to the wider labor movement. With the help of Teamsters Local 25 and union-supporting truck drivers, HGSU-UAW was able to delay deliveries across campus, affecting BorrowDirect and mail and package deliveries. In addition, the strike disrupted construction projects at Harvard’s Longwood Campus. The solidarity displayed by Boston workers made HGSU-UAW workers keenly aware of their own power. Eliot Fenton, a second-year Ph.D. student in physics, described to the HPR the personal effect of the strike on his class consciousness: “I had never really witnessed a labor struggle before. The strike definitely made me more supportive of unionization, more aware of labor movements, about crossing picket lines.” The radicalizing effect of the strike, particularly through delivery disruptions and coalition-building, was transformative for HGSU’s membership. For Fenton, picket lines “built a sense of community” and gave him “faces to fight for.”
Strikes as Political Education
Beyond class consciousness, the HGSU-UAW strike also served as a valuable source of political education for the wider Harvard and greater Boston communities.
For undergraduate students, for example, the strike provided necessary insight into the hierarchies and power structures embedded within the academic world. Teaching fellows, course assistants, and research assistants often discussed their decision to withhold labor with their undergraduate students in an attempt to make clear the stakes and motives behind striking. When explaining to the HPR why she marched with HGSU-UAW on the picket line, Farah Afify ‘22 said, “One TF had a very frank and open conversation with us during section one day, explaining why she was personally going to join the picket line. Every TF I’ve had at Harvard has always been very supportive and part of the reason I’m interested in what I’m learning. To see them put in a vulnerable situation like that, where they’re struggling to have basic living conditions, is disheartening.” This disenchantment with the University translated into solidarity actions for hundreds of other undergraduate students as well, who walked out of class on the first day of the strike and continued to show support for student-workers by joining the picket line for the following weeks.
The political education initiated by the strike reached far beyond Harvard’s gates by garnering support among Cambridge and Boston community members. Members of the Jewish Labor Committee, spiritual leaders from all over Boston, and climate organizers joined the picket lines. Alumni in four cities staged a joint action at the offices of members of the Harvard Corporation calling for the Harvard administration to negotiate fairly. Esperanza Spalding played at a solidarity concert and union members put on a three-act dramatization of bargaining.
The strike drew the attention of elected officials at the state and national level, too. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent fruit and bagels to the strike’s headquarters, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) invited HGSU-UAW to a labor dinner and dance party, and Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) marched with strikers in the rain. Twenty-two members of the House of Representatives, all Harvard alumni, sent a letter to President Bacow in support of HGSU’s fight for a fair contract and urging Harvard to “negotiate much, much more intensively.” The strike brought together organizations and individuals in a collective reimagining of what Harvard could look like for its workers. Through a program of radical political education, the strike informed and agitated the Harvard and greater Boston community.
The Future of Academia
For many student-workers participating in the strike, the future of academia is jarring and scary. The culture of academia today prioritizes productivity over quality of life for student-workers. Instead of addressing the high incidence of mental health disorders among graduate students, for example, the University chooses to maximize its profits by overworking and underpaying its student-workers. The cut-throat academic culture leads to perverse power dynamics between student-workers and professors, dwindling career prospects, and toxic stress, all without job security or optimistic financial prospects.
For decades, universities have been turning to contingent, adjunct labor, dramatically reducing the number of full-time, tenure-track positions. While the number of Ph.D. students is on the rise, there is a profound scarcity of faculty positions. In addition to the untenable wages, inadequate healthcare, and lack of redress for discrimination and harassment, the future prospects for student-workers in academia are bleak. These tensions are reflected in HGSU’s fight for labor rights and protections.
Collective student-worker action has the ability to disrupt business as usual at the University, both in the literal sense and in the abstract. While the strike may not have immediately won a contract, it did give Harvard a sense of student-worker power. It won six new tentative agreements that will protect student-workers’ rights. It forced the University to take seriously its commitment to reaching an agreement through mediation. Most importantly, it brought the Harvard and Boston community together in solidarity with student-workers. When thousands show up to demand justice for all, Harvard has no choice but to listen.
Image Credit: thenounproject.com / Claire Jones