Off-Campus Students Dismayed at Absence of Mail-In Ballots for Union Election

UPDATED: April 10, 2018 at 8:20 p.m.

Ahead of the second unionization election next week, some Harvard graduate student assistants away from campus say they are disappointed there will not be mail-in ballots for the election.

The election—which is slated to be held on April 18 and 19—will only be conducted at three in-person polling sites on Harvard’s campus, per a pre-election agreement between the University and Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers. The results of the poll will determine whether eligible graduate and undergraduate student assistants may collectively bargain with the University.

A number of the students unable to vote next week include those completing fieldwork or remote research for their degree. For Ph.D. programs such as sociology, history, and anthropology, this off-campus work is often integral to a student’s dissertation.

Sociology Ph.D. student Amy H. Tsang, who is spending a year researching for her dissertation in China, said she was surprised to find out she would not have the opportunity to vote.

“We received emails that were supposed to explain things about the union and the election process, but given that so many students are always away from campus for research, I found it strange that we weren't told about this very important fact,” Tsang said.

In an email, Anthropology graduate program administrator Marianne Fritz estimated that, at any given time, roughly 15 percent of the program’s more than 80 graduate students are working in the field. This work typically occurs during the fourth and fifth years of the degree program, according to the department’s website.

Tsang remarked that her department has a similar timeline for advanced graduate students to perform field work.

“Since we're more advanced [graduate students], we've also had experience being TFs and research assistants and working,” Tsang said. “So we have experience relevant to try to decide whether or not we feel a union would benefit our working conditions.”

Anthropology Ph.D. student Shuang Lu Frost, who is also currently completing fieldwork in China, wrote in an email that she thinks the policy is “biased” against students in the social sciences and humanities.

“Students in these disciplines have particular working experience and face particular challenges during their graduate study; and their voices are crucial to include,” Frost wrote.

According to National Labor Relations Board procedure, unionization elections may be conducted using either “manual” in-person ballots, mail-in ballots, or both. While the final say on election procedure lies with the NLRB’s regional director, the agency usually defers to the employer and the proposed union if a pre-election agreement between the two exists.

HGSU-UAW organizer Andrew B. Donnelly wrote in an email that the decision to have an in-person election was made early on between the University and HGSU-UAW before the original Nov. 2016 election.

William B. Gould IV, a former NLRB chairman, said the board accepts postal ballots in “a wide number of circumstances,” though the decision varies case-by-case. Gould has argued in the past that mail-in ballots lead to a better representation of the voting population.

“They would have to agree upon it, but postal ballots are provided where it's infeasible to vote under whatever other method is provided,” Gould said.

In order to vote, some off-campus graduate students have resigned themselves to making the trek to return to Cambridge.

Sociology and Social Policy Ph.D. student Nathan J. Robinson, who criticized the lack of mail ballots, said he plans to travel back to Cambridge from his field studies in order to vote in next week’s election.

“Imagine if you were allowed to vote in presidential elections, but only if you went to the middle of the Nevada desert,” Robinson wrote in an email.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 10, 2018

A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Nathan Robinson as a Ph.D. student in Anthropology. In fact, he is a Ph.D. student in Sociology and Social Policy.

—Staff writer Shera S. Avi-Yonah can be reached at shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @saviyonah.

—Staff writer Molly C. McCafferty can be reached at molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @mollmccaff.