Harvard, Graduate Student Union Clash Over Bargaining Observation

Negotiations for the Harvard graduate students union’s third contract got off to a rocky start last week, when University officials canceled the first bargaining session just hours before it was scheduled to begin over a dispute about meeting attendance.

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers, which represents roughly 5,000 teaching and research assistants, had encouraged all union members to attend the session days before, while University officials had not agreed to allow observers.

“When we have more members attending these sessions, Harvard feels more pressure to hear our demands,” they wrote on Instagram three days before the scheduled session.

According to bargaining committee member Alexis R. Miranda, the union did not plan to allow observers in the bargaining room itself until an agreement over attendance was reached. University officials told the union they were planning to address attendance procedures in closed-door committee-only negotiation over ground rules, according to Miranda.

After a back-and-forth email exchange between the two sides left Harvard officials unconvinced the union would not bring hundreds of unit members into negotiations, they canceled the Feb. 28 session.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement to The Crimson that “the University feels negotiations should be conducted through in-person, confidential sessions between the two parties’ authorized bargaining teams.”

“Harvard is committed to good-faith discussions on topics the HGSU-UAW will put forward,” Newton added.

The next HGSU-UAW bargaining session has been scheduled for March 14.

Harvard is currently in the process of negotiating two other contracts with UAW-affiliated unions — the academic workers’ union for non-tenure-track faculty, and the union for students working in non-academic campus jobs.

In negotiations with both, organizers for Harvard Academic Workers-UAW and Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union-UAW say members that are not part of the bargaining unit have been allowed to observe, though few attend the bargaining sessions. National labor law only requires employers to bargain with unions’ designated bargaining representatives.

“It makes sense to want that process to be transparent, so that it can be democratic,” said Bea Wall-Feng ’25, a member of the HUWU-UAW bargaining committee. “We want everyone to have a say in how the contract turns out.”

“It feels unnecessary to me to try and limit who can be involved in — or even be aware of — what happens,” she added.

While Harvard negotiators proposed rules in March 2024 to allow “support members” from both the University and the union to provide testimony on particular issues given advance notice, HUWU-UAW rejected the proposal.

Wall-Feng, a former Crimson magazine editor, wrote in a statement that the University’s proposal was “unnecessary and potentially restrictive.”

The sides have been negotiating without comprehensive ground rules for in-person bargaining ever since. And according to Wall-Feng, the University has not prevented rank-and-file members from occasionally observing bargaining sessions.

For HAW-UAW contract negotiations, union members that are not part of the 10-person bargaining committee can attend in-person with advanced notice or observe the sessions online. The union’s website advertises “open negotiation sessions” and includes a link to RSVP.

Organizers post updates to the website tracking proposals and counterproposals from both parties after each bargaining session. HUWU-UAW also launched an online bargaining tracker last month.

HGSU-UAW representatives said they have not decided how to publicly communicate bargaining updates, and will update the bargaining page of their website in the near future.

According to Newton, while rank-and-file members may occasionally offer testimony during negotiations — contingent upon mutual agreement between the parties — Harvard does not usually open bargaining sessions beyond the committee itself.

At graduate union contract negotiations in 2018, rank-and-file HGSU-UAW members were occasionally allowed to provide testimonials on specific issues during negotiations after providing advance notice.

Marisa Borreggine, a climate researcher at Georgetown University who served as vice president of HGSU-UAW during the 2021 negotiations, wrote in a statement that “the bargaining committee would have an open invite for representatives from different departments to come and stand behind the committee in support” for the first contract negotiations.

“We literally just stood there silently with signs saying our department names and witnessed the process of bargaining a couple times,” Borreggine.

Then, in 2021, when HGSU-UAW negotiations took place on Zoom, the sessions were opened to consistently allow observers in the bargaining unit.

“They were not meant to be reactive or anything,” Borreggine said in an interview, adding that observers had to stay muted. “They were just there to listen.”

William B. Gould IV, former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said that external observers may not always aid the “political, sometimes theatrical process” of collective bargaining.

“The traditional view of the private sector here is that the idea of word-for-word transparency just is not always consistent with making the collective bargaining process work well,” Gould said.

In a separate statement to The Crimson, Newton reiterated the University’s push for confidential bargaining.

“The University thinks it is more productive to engage in good-faith discussions and negotiations with HGSU-UAW’s bargaining team at the bargaining table rather than through the media,” he wrote. “Labor negotiations at the table have proven effective in reaching agreements that are beneficial to both parties, and the University is committed to pursuing that path with all of its unions, including HGSU-UAW.”

Correction: March 7, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Bea Wall-Feng ’25 as the HUWU-UAW president. In fact, Wall-Feng is a member of the HUWU-UAW bargaining committee, not the president.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.