The Harvard graduate student union has set Monday, Oct. 27, as the start date for a second strike if it does not reach a contract with the university by then. The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW), which represents more than 4,000 student workers in Cambridge and Allston, announced the deadline on Friday, Oct. 17, according to The Harvard Crimson.
A walkout would be the union’s second large-scale work stoppage this year. A strike in the spring halted work for 40 days, the Crimson reported, and ended in June without a new contract, according to The Boston Globe.
Strike vote and the Oct. 27 deadline
Earlier this month, 88 percent of voting HGSU members backed a strike authorization. The union says the university has refused several of its central proposals, including wage increases, protections for noncitizen workers, and an independent grievance process for harassment and discrimination cases.
At an Oct. 8 bargaining session, Harvard raised its proposed annual raises from 2.5 and 2.75 percent to 3 percent and introduced timelines for handling disability accommodation requests, according to the union. HGSU Vice President Evan R. Lemire told the Crimson it was the first time in three sessions that Harvard had brought new counterproposals.
“We’re very grateful that there was movement, and we’re appreciative of the movement,” Lemire said. “But this movement wasn’t sufficient for our workers, and it wasn’t sufficient to reach a fair contract.”
The union also says Harvard would not move on a proposal that would eliminate nearly $3 million in funds that help workers pay for health care, dental care, child care and immigration expenses.
What Harvard is offering
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton said in a statement that the university has proposed “an immediate, 6.1 percent pay raise once a contract is signed, and a total pay increase of nearly 16 percent over the life of the contract for all HGSU members.” He said Harvard had also “made significant progress in other key areas,” including expanded benefits coverage for Ph.D. students and emergency hardship funds open to all students.
“These are just a few reasons why the University feels a strike is not warranted. However, we continue to meet in good faith with the HGSU bargaining leadership and remain committed to reaching an agreement,” Newton wrote.
Dispute over whether a second strike is protected
In an Oct. 2 letter to faculty, Deputy Provost Jessica Soban and Paul R. Curran, managing director of Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations, wrote that a second strike in support of the same goals as the spring walkout may be considered “intermittent” and therefore not protected under labor law. “Accordingly, student workers would be subject to the full range of employment consequences for not performing their work duties,” they wrote.
Lemire rejected that description. In a statement, he wrote that “deciding later that circumstances warrant going on another strike is fundamentally different than planning a strategy to strike, return to work, and strike again for a more damaging effect with less risk.” He said the union, on the advice of its lawyers, considers Harvard’s warning “unlawful.”
“The union is about collective power, collective strength in numbers, and it’s that that protects us,” Lemire said.
The endowment argument
In its Friday announcement, the union argued that Harvard “has the resources to agree to a fair contract,” pointing to an endowment that grew to nearly $68 billion in fiscal 2026. Harvard’s own annual financial report, released Oct. 15, showed a $100 million operating surplus for the year, though university finance officials said the unrestricted part of the budget ran close to an $80 million deficit. Our earlier coverage of job pressures in Cambridge’s research economy gives more local context.
What happens next
The union is scheduled to meet Harvard at the bargaining table once more before the deadline and has said it will ask for more dates. If no deal is reached, the strike would begin Oct. 27, in the second half of the fall semester, when graduate workers lead discussion sections, grade midterms and staff research labs.
More on Harvard’s labor talks
The graduate union is not the only Harvard bargaining unit near a possible walkout. The Boston Globe reported that more than 6,500 UAW-represented workers, split between graduate student workers and non-tenure-track teaching staff, could strike in the coming weeks, and that non-tenured staff have set a Nov. 10 deadline. Separately, Harvard dining hall workers voted on Oct. 21 to authorize a strike; see our report on the Harvard dining workers’ strike vote. Readers following Boston-area health care labor can also read about the Brigham nurses’ strike vote.
Sources
- The Harvard Crimson: Graduate Student Union Sets Second Strike for October 27 If Negotiations Fail (Oct. 19, 2026)
- The Boston Globe: Harvard dining workers authorize strike as school endowment surges (Oct. 21, 2026)
- Harvard Gazette: ‘Our focus has been on resiliency’ (Oct. 15, 2026)
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