Harvard Grad Student Workers Go On Strike

After 14 months of bargaining, more than 4,000 Harvard University graduate students went on strike last week, The Christian Science Monitor reported. 

The Harvard Graduate Students Union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, claiming the administration has refused to negotiate on several issues, including cost-of-living adjustments, changes to how the university handles harassment and discrimination complaints, and protections for noncitizen graduate student workers. 

In a statement issued before the strike, Provost John Manning and Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick said the university offered a 10 percent wage increase over four years. The union is seeking a much higher $55,000 base wage for all workers and annual raises of 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is higher. The union is also seeking paid leave for noncitizens to attend immigration proceedings.

“We’ve been under so much political pressure in the last year, specifically around the rights of noncitizen workers,” Rochelle Sun, a Ph.D. student in government, told the Monitor. “How do you expect a noncitizen student to be able to continue their work safely here and to feel like they’re secure as a student here without having those common-sense protections?”