Grad Student Union Effort Will Not Seek ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Approach

Organizers of the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers answered questions about a potential contract, saying it would not follow a “one-size-fits-all” model, and communicated the goals of the union effort to roughly 20 graduate students at an information session held Wednesday.

At an info session about Harvard’s graduate student unionization effort, Niharika N. Singh explains the benefits of having a union of graduate student workers. By Sidni M. Frederick

The event began with panelists running through the basics of the union effort, the “roadmap” forward that the HGSU-UAW posted on its website, and the administration’s stance on their effort, which they say is to “inject uncertainty” into their election process.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences dean for administration and finance Allen Aloise wrote in an emailed statement, “It’s important for students to get engaged in this conversation however and wherever they can. We want students to freely share ideas, ask questions and to get information in the spirit of open discourse that is the hallmark of this university.”

Union supporter and Ph.D. student Niharika N. Singh, one of the speakers at the event, said a union will make the decision-making process more democratic, hold the administration accountable, and create a sense of community.

“A union will not impose a one-size-fits-all policy,” Singh said. “A contract can really cater to specific needs of departments and professional schools, and we decide what those priorities are.”

Although the HGSU-UAW has not yet announced when the union election will take place, Yale’s union effort filed a petition for an election quickly after the National Labor Relations Board ruled that teaching and research assistants are employees under the law. This week, Yale administrators challenged the union effort for attempting to hold elections department by department, taking advantage of a new rule allowing for “microunit” elections. The NLRB hearing is expected to be completed within a week.

HGSU-UAW spokesperson and Ph.D. student Jack M. Nicoludis did not say whether HGSU-UAW will follow Yale’s strategy. “It will be interesting to see what happens at Yale,” he said.

During a question and answer session, Nicoludis answered a question about whether multiple contracts would be needed to cater to the needs of different departments.

“It wouldn’t be a different contract. The contract would be extensive and include provisions for different departments,” Nicoludis said.

Union organizer and Ph.D. student Abigail Weil said although a union would be new to Harvard, graduate students have been unionized at public universities for years.

“We’re not inventing the concept of it. Graduate worker contracts at other universities are not a one-size- fits-all model; that doesn’t work,” Weil said.

This information session comes on the heels of last week’s meeting between the HGSU-UAW and University labor representatives. Nicoludis added that during the meeting, University representatives said “they have no plans to enter any litigation about the legality of our being able to unionize” after an election is held. Nicoludis called this “promising.”

But Director of Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations Paul R. Curran, who organized the meeting, did not verify Nicoludis’ statement.

“We’re not yet at a point where determinations have been made about the scope of the potential bargaining unit and other logistics, so it’s premature to speak to those matters,” Curran wrote in an email through GSAS director of communications Ann Hall.

Several first-year graduate students attended the information session in order to get their questions answered. But one first-year Ph.D. student, Canaan Morse, did not need any convincing.

“My final decision [for a Ph.D. program] came down to Harvard versus Berkeley. And one of the reasons I almost went to Berkeley is because they’re unionized,” Morse said. “At this point I don’t have too many questions because I am fairly aware of why I am here and why this needs to happen.”