While bargaining remains our most direct tool for creating a contract, your testimonies and engagement are our most powerful (Yes, we mean you!!). During the next session on Wednesday 7/22 at 1:00 pm, we will counter on wages. We’re looking for workers who can testify how insufficient wages and especially the lack of cost-of-living adjustments has affected them. Contact us if you want to testify (in-person or on zoom). Observe the session, and register here if you haven’t already.

If you want to read all versions of our contract articles, go here

The good:

The Corporation side returned a package of counters that contains significant wins for us:

• Admin has dropped its proposal for tying teaching faculty promotion to arbitrary enrollment minimums! This means you cannot be fired if there is one student too few in your class. Thank you to all workers who gave BC feedback about this.
• Admin agreed to a stricter definition of a 35h work week (averaged over appointments period) for non-teaching employees, helping to protect our unit from overwork.
• Admin agreed you can not be retaliated against for refusing extra duties outside of your job description.
• Admin agreed that researchers who teach will receive a secondary appointment with proper compensation.
• If your spring class is canceled, you keep your pay and don’t have to teach it during the next academic year. Sadly they want to exclude TAs from this.

All of these are contingent on the union accepting, as-is, a package of 4 articles (Workload, Titles and Classification, Academic Promotion and Professional Standing). Considering the issues these still contain, we cannot accept this package yet, but we are closer now than we ever were before!

The bad:

• Admin has largely rejected our model of 5 lecturer tracks that take into account field specificities.
• Admin still claims they can unilaterally eliminate or modify job titles without any recourse.
• In the context of support for professional development, Admin still refuses that research can be a legitimate part of a teacher’s work.

The very bad:

We confronted Admin about their arbitrary decision to not give our members a raise for another year. They refused to engage, arguing that past years’ raises, which most of us got every summer, did not amount to status quo. When we told them we are filing a ULP (labor lawsuit), they interjected “Add it to the pile!” showing their disdain for due process and for our workers’ concerns.

If you are confused how Admin can be so reasonable on workloads and yet act so petulantly on raises, so are we! Our gameplan remains unchanged in the face of this: be steadfast, fight, and win a fair contract!

Our Counters

HAW bargaining page and full list of articles.

• In Severance we are close to agreeing with Admin, but we’re still seeking to ensure the full benefit for some edge cases.
• In Visa Processing Cost we reasserted that Harvard should cover SEVIS fees and more importantly the cost of travel for the purpose of visa renewal.
• In Paid Leave we want to get 26 weeks of 100% paid leave for medical reasons for all workers, which is currently the case for professional staff and post-docs but not other members of our unit. We are also asking Harvard to provide 100% paid leave to victims of abuse, one step further than what’s required by MA law, and increased paid parental leave.

The Bargaining Committee always needs your feedback, email us hawuawbc@gmail.com if you want to discuss any of this.

Our SAV is still open, vote and make your colleagues vote.

The Summer or Bargaining is on! Four sessions left, everyone should try to attend at least once, see our Summer of Bargaining email or go here.

In solidarity,

HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee

The post Bargaining update: some very good and a pile of of bad appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

To be clear, it is categorically false that Harvard is required to freeze our wages during bargaining. HAW wants all of us to get our expected yearly raise now, especially after receiving no raise or inflation adjustment since July 2024. If Harvard Admin wants to avoid acting “unilaterally”, they have the option of bargaining over raises, which our bargaining team would gladly approve. Furthermore, until our contract is ratified, Harvard is legally obligated under the National Labor Relations Act to follow past practice regarding wage increases and should continue granting yearly raises/cost of living adjustments if they have done so in the past. Therefore, admin choosing not to give some of HAW members a raise may amount to an unlawful change of our working conditions. We have clearly informed Harvard Admin of our position on this issue.

To help us fight back against this, if you have received notification that you will not be getting a raise because of HAW’s contract negotiations, please fill out this form. Responses will remain confidential, and a member of the Bargaining Committee may contact you for more information.

In solidarity,

HAW Organizing and Bargaining Committees

The post Harvard is choosing to not give HAW members a raise now, falsely blaming union contract negotiations appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

tl;dr – After testimonials from two of our members, we presented articles that address childcare, professional development, and workloads. We remain committed to protecting our members’ abilities to start families, better themselves, and work with dignity. In response, Management returned us a mostly status-quo proposal on Paid Leaves with some concessions for researchers.

We started the bargaining session with powerful testimonials from two of our colleagues, one who is a postdoc at HMS and another who is a lecturer in English. Each shared how they have had to go without childcare for young children while working at Harvard, because their families could not afford it. They illustrated how it is nearly impossible to start a family despite being workers with PhDs at the richest university in the world. Cambridge and Boston have some of the highest childcare expenses in the US, and the cost of living in the area is in no small part due to the presence of Harvard itself. 

Our workers are stuck between a rock and a hard place – often earning enough to not qualify for state assistance but not enough to actually afford independent childcare. One year of care for an infant in a Harvard childcare center currently costs $45,360, nearly two thirds of the average HAW worker’s take-home pay.  We see the results in our classrooms, laboratories, and offices – the distracted researcher worried if an unfamiliar babysitter will take good care of their child, a mother breastfeeding her newborn in front of students during office hours.

A real, accessible childcare benefit—equivalent to what ladder faculty and senior administrators already receive—would go a long way towards fixing this untenable situation. This is what we proposed again in our Family Support article on Monday.

We also presented our counterproposal on Professional Development.

As a union of academic workers, our professional lives are dependent on continuously developing our knowledge and skills. The University profits immensely from this development, and therefore shares some responsibility in fostering it financially. To this end, we have proposed an annual $4000 Professional Development Account for each worker to be used to offset expenses associated with professional activities, such as attending conferences or traveling for research. Harvard already recognizes the importance of such activities, and already provides some funds for doing so, however the availability and distribution of this funding is often obscure and uneven. The Union’s framework brings clarity and equity to the support of professional activity. Additionally, we have proposed regular course releases for long-serving lecturers so that adequate time can be dedicated to formulating new courses and refreshing curricula, as well as possibility of unpaid leave for multiyear appointees who receive outside fellowships or other short-term professional opportunities. 

Finally, we presented our most recent counterproposal on Workloads. 

This article has been revised a number of times on both sides. Our latest attempt provides a new framework for assessing workloads for teaching faculty, the final remaining point of major disagreement between admin and the union in this article. While many of our workers may share the title “Lecturer,” their jobs look very different from field to field. Admin has proposed a framework in which all lecturers teach four or five courses per year, plus an additional service requirement. We know that current workloads vary much more than this, and there are some programs for which such a rigid framework would be completely untenable. Our proposal delineates five distinct workload tracks for lecturers, depending on the programs in which they are teaching, and aims to preserve status quo teaching workloads across the FAS in the face of admin’s austerity-driven understaffing. 

Management had one counterproposal for us: Paid Leaves. 

While the proposal largely reflects the status quo for professional staff, and other benefits are limited to the minima required by state and federal law, we did make some gains in a few areas. Notably, research employees (postdocs) will have 12 days per year and can have up to 20 vacation days roll over. Additionally, for workers required to work on a university holiday (e.g. teaching on Veteran’s Day), they will be granted a floating holiday.

Finally, we would like to express our immense gratitude to Sara Feldman, who has been instrumental in the formation of this union and its bargaining. She is unfortunately among the newest cohort of workers that Harvard has cast aside via its cruel practice of time caps.

Sara will be making further trouble as a member of the Bay Area Chapter of UC-AFT Local 1474. She will still be in the labor movement fighting for fellow lecturers, and back in the fight to protect public higher education, which we all know she deeply values.

If you would like to help carry the torch lit by Sara and her colleagues, and fight to make working at Harvard sustainable for all of our members, please reach out to us.

In other news, we filed another charge against the Harvard administration.

The Bargaining Committee has now filed charges against the Harvard Administration for violating labor law with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The two charges we have filed for violating labor law: 

1. Illegally Increasing workloads. The administration increased workload for teachers in the Expository Writing program this semester by 10%, and are seeking to increase it again to 50% in the fall. We announced this charge a few months ago.
2. Illegally reclassifying workers. The administration unilaterally categorized more than 100 workers (who were on the original voting list as eligible to vote) as “supervisors,” and therefore ineligible for union representation. The administration should have raised concerns about these workers during the election process, not after the fact. It is illegal to reclassify workers and communicate to them that they are out of the unit without first bargaining with the union. No such negotiations have taken place, and we are demanding that these workers be added back into the unit—and that their union eligibility is communicated clearly—until an agreement is reached.

Next Bargaining Session

Our next bargaining session is scheduled for July 17th, from 1 to 4 PM. If you are interested in watching, please RSVP here. During that session, we hope the administration will take advantage of the break in the academic calendar and give us responses for the 21 articles that we have been waiting for (in some cases, we’ve been waiting for as long as a year!)

In solidarity, 

HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee

The post Bargaining Update #41: Workers with families need support to do their best work!  appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

1. A wage freeze for last year and a 2.5% raise for the next two years (except for HMS postdocs who could get a $8000 [11%] pay cut).
2. Deletion of any step system for wages.
3. No commitment to maintaining health insurance standards.
4. No retirement for postdocs.
5. No dental insurance for TAs.
6. No improved transit/parking benefits.
7. Status quo on everything else.

If you haven’t voted in the strike authorization vote, please do! The more of us who show we are going to stand together, the more we show them we want a contract that addresses our concerns. We need to put pressure on them to stop the delays and get a contract we can accept!

Details:

After two months, Harvard admin finally brought counters for five (out of fourteen) economic articles. It took their team two months to propose no improvements (and indeed some degradation of compensation). Admin felt the need to begin the conversation by claiming financial losses due to the Trump administration (even though they saw a 11.9% Return on Investment with the endowment last year), but the proposals they are offering are far below the standards set in other higher ed contracts from the same timeframe.  

To be clear, our entire economic proposal would cost much less than the money Harvard reportedly lost on cryptocurrency.

Here are the details of the economic proposals the administration brought to the table today:

Our current negotiations are at 778 days! Admins here are going exceptionally slow, likely intentionally so they can continue to gut our workforce by taking advantage of Trump’s agenda.

• Compensation. They are maintaining last year’s wage freezes, and offering a 2.5% increase added to your FY 2026 salary upon signing the contract (new hires will be lower), 2.5% increase in FY 28 and 29, and 2.75% in FY 30. They are removing any current step increases and creating new minimums, which in some cases are actually far lower than the current ones: for example, they want to lower the HMS postdoc minimum salary by $8,000 or 11%. Their language allows them to give HMS postdocs the 2.5% raise for FY 2027, then drop down to $67,800 when they renew your appointment. A pay cut of 11% for those people.
• Health Benefits. They largely offered no improvements to our health plans. They are refusing to put a cap on the amount our health insurance costs can increase year to year. When we saw a nearly 17% increase in our insurance this year, it’s disappointing that admins insist on continuing to be able to do that to us. Additionally, they are refusing to guarantee they will continue to provide a benefits plan that covers gender affirming care at a time when such rights are under attack. They are putting the responsibility of understanding which plans are visa compliant on visa holders, setting us/themselves up for a potential repeat of last year’s J1 visa crisis.
• Retirement and Retiree Benefits. Both of these articles offer no improvements. Admins refused to offer postdocs retirement benefits (available to postdocs in many other universities), and when pressed about why, they offered no explanation other than “that’s how it’s always been” (direct quote).
• Parking and Transit. They offered a proposal with no material improvements. It allows each of us to choose between a parking benefit or 60% reduced MBTA pass. All members can use the $360 bike reimbursement benefit.
  
  For all of these, management explicitly said that they do not have any rationale for their proposals. Furthermore, they want to be able to change our benefits articles unilaterally even after the contract is enacted!

Our team worked hard to prepare two counters for the admins.

• Professional Standing We reasserted our article, which the administration rejected twice simply because they claim, as they have in other proposals, that we do not need these provisions in our contract. But if these articles are not in our contract, we have no ability to enforce the policies if they violate them. And nothing is to prevent them from changing the existing policies for the worse.
• Titles and Classifications. We are getting closer with this article, but we have some outstanding differences. We refuse to keep two parallel teaching tracks (formerly Lecturers v. Preceptors, now they’re suggesting Lecturer Track A and B). Crucially, we are including language to make our contract stronger by refusing to allow Harvard to unilaterally modify, eliminate or create new titles and thereby circumventing it.

If the administration continues to ignore the value that we provide to the university, a strike would be the best way to make our value clear. Vote! Tell your friends here and beyond about this. The richest university in the world can afford to pay you.

In solidarity,

HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee

The post Bargaining Update: Harvard’s compensation proposal: An unacceptable offer appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

I believe that people in this room today— my colleagues who stand here beside me and our colleagues at the other end of the bargaining table—are aware of the damage to education done by the austerity measures that Harvard is choosing to employ, even though its endowment and donations are both record high. On top of the time-caps policy and hiring freeze, we are also going to see a 25% budget cut in the coming semester for non-tenure-track teachers. Many programs will be devastated. My own Chinese program will lose 5 specialized courses. Students who aspire to become China experts to help make the world a more peaceful place will simply have very few advanced classes to take. I also heard that Persian will not have a full-time preceptor next semester, with the war going on.  I am deeply baffled by what role Harvard wants to play in this already very dangerous world.  Harvard boasts of nurturing experts in every field who work for the common good—but are we really doing that? As a world-leading institution, are we in fact contributing to greater stability in the world and make it a better place? 

I am aware that none of us in this room right now has the power to make a final call on significant decisions, and you MAY think that what you are helping to make a reality for some teachers here is nothing serious. But nothing is insignificant. All peer institutions, including universities and schools across the world, have always been watching what Harvard offers to education and how things are done here. All the measures taken here are going to have ripple effects in the world. One more day that we stay complicit in allowing this university to fire its experienced teachers and replace them with chatbots, the stronger the dangerous signal we are sending beyond the walls of Harvard yard. One more day we are de-prioritizing education, the stronger we are sending the message to the world: even the most prestigious university does not care about education—so what will the rest of the world become?  I invite all of us here to think what kind of world we want to live in ourselves, as well as for our kids and even grandkids. What kind of impact do we want to make? And finally, which side are we on? 

And lastly, my dear fellow colleagues, I want to say to you, life is not worth living if we let ourselves succumb to fear. I hereby urge all of you to carry on the fight.    Thank you.

The post Testimony from JC, and outgoing Preceptor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

The problem ultimately comes back to the culture of disposability for teaching faculty at Harvard. The majority of preconcentration advisors are NTT. Without us, the advising network doesn’t hold up. 

The post Testimonial from outgoing Science Preceptor in FAS: appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

The students in that basement gave us far more recognition of the situation we’re in than I’ve received at this table or from my supervisors.

The Corporation’s counters on the issue of time caps have again and again betrayed a belief that we as teachers are replaceable. It doesn’t matter if someone times out. You’ll always find a replacement.

I won’t argue that you’ll find someone to take the job. People are desperate. I don’t need to tell you about the state of the academic job market. 

There have also been clear signals that you mean to replace us with AI wherever possible. We see this in the replacement of SEAS advisors last fall, and especially in the recent announcement that first-year (pre-concentration) advising would be replaced with a chatbot.

But teaching is not reducible to a number, an algorithmic output, a line on a budget. It relies on relationships and on trust. And both of those require time to build.

To take just one example: we’ve heard so much in the past few years about the need to foster classroom discussion on difficult and controversial topics, to make space for disagreement. Well, last week, the students in my course on the history of the Holocaust discussed the politicization of Holocaust memory in debates surrounding the war in Gaza. It’s hard to imagine a more difficult, charged, controversial topic. But because I’ve worked to build those relationships of trust, students were able to disagree with one another respectfully. We all learned from one another in that discussion.  

I could also talk about the scholarship I won’t be able to produce if I can’t find another academic job because the Corporation won’t even provide library access to workers who are timing out. I have multiple projects in the works, including a book manuscript, a chapter in an edited volume, and a journal article, all with deadlines in the next seven months. Positions like mine are allegedly supposed to be “teaching postdocs” that provide experience and serve as bridges to tenure-track jobs elsewhere. But the bridges are gone. The landscape has changed. The Corporation has done nothing to reckon with that reality.

You have always had the power to do the right thing. You have chosen not to do it. I want you to reckon with the human consequences of that choice.

The post Testimony from J.R., outgoing Lecturer in FAS: appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

Mindful that we have been bludgeoning your inboxes with emails about the Strike Authorization Vote (SAV), HGSU solidarity, Visitas action, and other updates, we have consolidated here updates from the past four bargaining sessions, which took place over the past three weeks. If that sounds like a lot of bargaining, it is! In response to the opening of our SAV, admin agreed to several additional bargaining dates, which have substantially increased the pace of progress at the table.

First, a non-bargaining announcement: HAW has filed its first unfair labor practice charge against the administration. The complaint focuses specifically on admin’s decision to unilaterally increase the size of Expos Studio courses from 10 students to 15. You can read about our complaint in the Crimson or our press release.

Here are the high points from bargaining in April (see the end of the email for a session-by-session breakdown and links to all passed proposals):

• We have won consideration for legal permanent residency (green card) sponsorship. Admin has agreed to consider in good faith supporting green cards for unit members who are eligible.
• Admin continues to resist, however, codifying even Harvard’s current policies on the access of federal law enforcement to campus. We don’t understand why admin wants to give themselves the flexibility to allow ICE more access to campus than they currently enjoy.
• We have won layoff benefits (including severance, at a rate yet to be bargained) for long-serving academic appointees who are not reappointed. Under current policies, academic appointees are never eligible for layoff benefits. A research appointee—for example—who has worked at Harvard on annual contracts for 25 years can be not reappointed at any time, and will receive no severance or subsidized health insurance, which is a common benefit after a layoff. While many details remain to be hammered out, admin has agreed to a framework in which employees who have worked full or part-time in the bargaining unit in 10 consecutive academic years will become eligible for layoff benefits (including severance) if not reappointed.
• Admin has finally backed off on its attempt to dramatically increase teacher workloads. For over a year, admin has been attempting to trade the lifting of “time caps” for heavier workloads for teachers—as much as 6 courses per year. They have finally relented in the face of our resistance to this proposal, and are now suggesting teacher workloads that are closer to status quo.
• Admin has finally agreed to re-title Preceptors as Lecturers. Their proposal envisions two Lecturer “tracks,” which still make problematic distinctions between the classes of workers currently known as “Preceptors” and “Lecturers.” But it’s a start towards unwinding a title that has long frustrated Harvard workers.
• Admin continues to insist, however, on enrollment minimums for teaching positions that would still impose de facto time caps on many, if not most, teaching faculty.
• Admin continues to insist as well on the right to not abide by key provisions in our contract—which fundamentally undermines every offer. They continue to insist, for example, on the right to create, eliminate, or modify any job classification in the contract—this would mean that they could restrict postdoc appointments back to 3 months or re-impose “time caps” by fiat, whenever they please.
• HAW continues to fight for one-year-minimum appointments for postdocs with job security during the term of that appointment. Similar provisions have been won at Mt. Sinai (SPOC-UAW), Rockefeller University (UPROR-UAW), and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (ERU-UAW).
• HAW continues to insist on protections of Academic Freedom and around Artificial Intelligence. These issues, central to our working conditions, are mandatory subjects of bargaining. Admin has yet to meaningfully engage on either issue.

As you can see from this abbreviated run-down, the pressure that we’ve begun ratcheting up through the power of organizing is beginning to work. But we can’t stop now! We need all hands on deck as we head into the summer to close a strong SAV and continue to build towards the next steps.

Here are a few ways you can help out:

• Let us know if admin is changing your working conditions! Is the administration assigning you more work because of the current austerity policies? Are they changing other things about your job? If so, it’s probably illegal! Please email us to let us know so we can explore next steps to resisting such changes.
• Attend bargaining on Tuesday 5/5, 12–3 PM! More workers in the room (whether in person or on Zoom) shows admin that members of this unit are paying attention and want a contract now. RSVP here to receive the Zoom link, and email or talk to a department leader if you’d like to come in person.
• Check in with your colleagues about the Strike Authorization Vote. Have they voted yet? If they didn’t receive the link, remind them to sign a card to join the union and they’ll receive the voting link!
• Keep an eye out in your email inbox for announcements soon about more opportunities to meet discuss HAW priorities and strategy with colleagues, in person and on Zoom. If you’d like to help plan a Q&A with union leaders focused specifically on your department, lab, or job, please email us!

In Solidarity,

The FAS/HMS/HDS HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee

—

The Details:

On April 7th, we presented a bundle of proposals that are central to how our jobs work: Titles & Classifications, Workloads, Academic Promotions, and Professional Standing. This meeting was scheduled on short notice for the purpose of us offering this package, and Admin brought no proposals. Alongside this package, we also reasserted our positions on Academic Freedom and Artificial Intelligence, noting again that these are mandatory subjects of bargaining.

On April 14th, we presented a counter-package of four important proposals for job security: Discipline and Dismissal, Appointment Security, Appointments & Reappointments, and Layoffs. Admin delivered a counter on Non-Citizen Workers’ Rights and Academic Promotions.  

On April 24th, we countered on Non-Citizen Workers’ Rights and Academic Promotions. The Admin team presented their counters on Layoffs and Appointments & Reappointments (packaged together with already-settled language on Discipline and Dismissal and Appointment Security); Titles and Classifications, Workloads, and Academic Promotions.

On this past Tuesday, April 28th, we delivered counters on Layoffs and Appointments & Reappointments (packaged together, again, with the settled language on Discipline and Dismissal and Appointment Security), while the Admin responded to us on Non-Citizen Workers’ Rights and Academic Promotions. We closed the session by explaining our grave concerns about the significant changes to the Expository Writing Studio Sequence, and informed them of our intent to file an unfair labor practice charge.

The post Pressure Works. Let’s Keep it up! (Bargaining Updates #34–37) appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 29, 2026
PRESS CONTACT: Dr. J. Gregory Given

Harvard Faculty Union Files Federal Labor Charge Against University Administration

The charge, which comes as the Harvard Academic Workers (HAW-UAW) negotiates their first contract, alleges an illegal, unilateral increase of 50% to the workloads of teachers in the College’s Expository Writing Program.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Harvard Academic Workers-UAW (HAW-UAW), a union of non-tenure-track teachers and researchers at Harvard University, has today filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Harvard University administration for unilateral changes in working conditions while bargaining. The charge focuses specifically on an announced increase in the size of sections in the Studio Sequence of the Expository Writing Program, two writing classes specifically targeted to first-year students who would benefit from more individualized attention in developing their academic writing skills.

Employers have a legal obligation to maintain status quo working conditions while a union is bargaining for its first contract. HAW-UAW won recognition in an election in April 2024, and has been bargaining with the Harvard administration since September of that year.

The change is a predictable outcome of the Harvard administration’s continued enforcement of “time caps”—arbitrary, hard term limits on academic appointments—alongside an ongoing hiring freeze and austerity budgeting that has led to a planned 25% reduction in non-tenure-track teaching positions. The HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee began warning the Harvard administration in March 2025 about the inevitable consequences of these policies. In a November 2025 bargaining session, the union specifically raised concerns about the possibility of understaffing in the Harvard College Writing Program, and reminded the administration of its obligation to bargain over changes to working conditions.

“For over a year we have been telling the administration that current policies would lead to a severe labor shortage in Expository Writing,” says Dr. J. Gregory Given, Preceptor in Expository Writing and member of the HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee. “The enrollments are consistent—the Program teaches almost all first-year students, every year—and so the staffing needs are consistent, too. The work of Expos is performed by non-tenure-track instructors precisely because it is among the most labor-intensive teaching assignments at the University. The administration’s cavalier attitude towards the structure of Expos Studio suggests a profound lack of interest in the integrity of its undergraduate instruction.”

The instructors who teach the Expository Writing classes (currently known as Preceptors) provide extensive, individualized feedback to students, both in writing and in one-on-one meetings, through a drafting and revision process. The illegal change to working conditions promises to substantially increase the burdens on Preceptors—equivalent to adding an additional course each semester to each Preceptor’s workload—reducing the amount of attention that Preceptors can focus on each student and thereby undercutting the integrity of the Studio program.

“Studio is more than a class. I see it as one way that Harvard fulfills its promise to students who never imagined they’d end up here. Some grew up in refugee camps, others are veterans, and many are first generation college students, like I was. All deserve to be here, but few arrive believing it,”  says Dr. Amy Hanes, Preceptor in Expository Writing. “Studio changes that. Limiting classes to just 10 students means that while they’re building writing and analytical skills, they’re also building relationships. Knowing that they have the group’s support gives them the confidence to take chances on the page, see what they’re made of, and lets them know that this is where they belong.”

After receiving the union’s filing, the National Labor Relations Board will conduct an investigation and bring charges against the University Administration when they find merit. Hearings will then be conducted to get the information on the record and, if found guilty, the board will order the employer to make appropriate changes. 

About HAW-UAW

Harvard Academic Workers (HAW-UAW) represents around 2600 non-tenure-track teachers and researchers in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Divinity School, including Lecturers, Preceptors, Teaching Assistants, Postdoctoral Researchers, Research Scientists, and academic staff. (The union also represents a separate bargaining unit of around 100 clinical instructors at the Harvard Law School.) HAW-UAW won recognition through an NLRB-administered election in April 2024, with over 93% of participants voting in favor of union representation. The union has been bargaining a first contract with the Harvard administration since September 2024. The two sides have now held 37 bargaining sessions but have reached tentative agreement on only 14 contract articles.

About UAW

The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) is one of the largest and most diverse unions in North America, with members in virtually every sector of the economy. UAW-represented workplaces include multinational corporations, small manufacturers, state and local governments, and colleges and universities, hospitals and private non-profit organizations. The UAW has more than 430,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The UAW represents roughly 100,000 higher education workers across the country, including 20,000 postdoctoral researchers, adjunct professors, and graduate workers in the Northeast who have chosen UAW representation in the last eight years.

Additional Quote

“Studio’s Q scores—a numerical ranking used to measure student satisfaction—and program evaluations are not only consistently excellent but highlight its status as a course that sets up students for success. Now, however, that entire process is at risk—thanks to an unnecessary pivot which threatens to undermine one of the most effective models that Harvard has for implementing academic rigor.” – Dr. Magaret Deli, Head Preceptor in Expository Writing.

The post Harvard Faculty Union Files Federal Labor Charge Against University Administration appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.

On Tuesday we had a particularly important bargaining session. We presented our Economic Package with 15 articles laying out our vision for the salaries and other economic benefits that we know are both necessary and long overdue. While there are significant outstanding non-economic issues that affect how our economic proposals will ultimately work (such as Titles and Classifications and Workloads), our proposals account for full inclusion and proper classification for all our members in the unit, and an appropriate workload that does not regress from established norms.

Here are highlights from the package (click the links for full proposals):

Compensation

• At least 20% salary increases for all unit members, at least 5% in yearly cost of living increases afterwards.
• We have established new minimum floors for the salaries of every position in our unit ensuring all our members are able to afford to live with dignity in the Boston/Cambridge region. If, after a 20% raise, you’re not at the minimum floor, you will be bumped up to that minimum.
• We have established new step systems for a number of classifications and pathways to growth and longevity with yearly raises to match progression through ranks.
• A one time $3000 signing bonus for every member of the unit to account for 2 years of stagnant salaries as the administration dragged negotiations on.

Family Support

• Access to all the same childcare benefits that our tenured colleagues and administrators receive to allow our members to be able to raise a family and balance their careers.
• Raising the household income caps on eligibility for childcare assistance.
• Up to $24,000 of support annually for childcare.
• Access to Harvard Childcare Centers with contracts based on appointment length.

Housing

• A cap on the total amount a unit member can be expected to contribute to Harvard-owned housing – 35% of monthly gross household income.
• The right to opt-out of automatic payroll deductions.
• Zero-interest short term loans to help cover moving costs or homeowner expenses as given to other Harvard unions.

Paid Leaves

• Expansion of vacation and leave eligibility to all researchers.
• Expansion of parental leave, with guarantee of full pay.
• Clear protections for work start and end dates for teaching faculty on 9-month or semesterly contracts, as well as provisions for short term leave during semester.
• 15 sick days a year for all unit members to take care of themselves or their loved ones.

Professional Development

• A professional development account for all unit members with $4,000 (or prorated amount for part-time workers) to use towards conference travel, professional memberships, and other research expenses.
• Expanded access to existing professional development opportunities at Harvard.
• A course release every 4 years for teaching faculty for curricular development.
• Unpaid professional development leave to allow unit members on multiyear contracts to take fellowships or other professional opportunities outside of the University for up to a year without losing their position.

Visa Processing and Renewal Costs

• A reassertion of reimbursement for all visa sponsoring costs, including premium processing fees.
• Reimbursement of up to $1500 for travel costs associated with visa renewals.

Medical Benefits

• Codifying the right to full medical benefits and workers compensation to all of our members.
• Choice between the current union and non-union copay reimbursement programs.
• Continued coverage in the event of layoff

Severance

• A reassertion of severance pay upon layoff for all workers in our unit: 1 week of pay per year of service up to 7 years, 1.5 weeks of pay per year of service up to 15 years, and 2 weeks of pay per year of service subsequently.

Retirement Benefits

• Retirement benefits for all of our unit members— including postdoctoral researchers, who currently receive no retirement contributions from Harvard.
• Vesting within 1 year to allow for members to receive benefits sooner.
• Access to all currently existing Harvard employee retirement benefits such as continued medical and dental coverage.

Relocation

• Guaranteed funds of up to $5000 to cover moving costs for new workers depending on distance from Harvard.

Tuition Assistance

• Access to TAP and TRP programs to help pay for tuition costs of courses at participating Harvard schools or qualifying courses at other institutions.

Student Loan Repayment

• A match of up to $400 a month for student loan repayments.

Parking and Transit

• A choice between a full subsidy of a monthly MBTA pass, or an equivalent $1080 subsidy for yearly parking costs.
• Expansion of current Bicycle subsidy of $360 to unit members alongside MBTA or Parking subsidy.

Alongside our marathon session of economic proposals, we also made time to provide a counter on Non-Citizen Worker Rights in response to management’s counter last session. We continue to insist on the codification of Harvard’s current policies around immigration enforcement on campus, noting the multiple peer institutions and unions that have codified similar protections in recent months. We also continued to insist that our workers be granted the opportunity to explore expanded visa choices in light of our other proposals which would allow unit members to potentially work at Harvard for longer. We believe if departments, programs or labs feel it is appropriate to offer long-term visa sponsorship to our members that they should be allowed the opportunity to do so.

In response to a package we proposed on March 17, the administration presented counters on Layoffs, Appointments and Reappointments, Discipline and Dismissal, and Appointment Security. We are inching closer to agreement on this package, but several significant issues remain, especially around the eligibility of unit positions for Layoffs.

As you have likely heard by now our Strike Authorization Vote is open and members are eligible to vote now. The single most important thing you can do right now to help win the economic benefits we described above is to VOTE YES TODAY in the SAV! Learn more and find out how to vote here. If you are a member and haven’t received your ballot please search your email(s) for ElectionBuddy or reach out to harvardacademicworkers@gmail.com.

If you have questions about our economic proposals or any of our other ongoing negotiations, don’t hesitate to reach out to the bargaining committee at hawuawbc@gmail.com

In solidarity,

HAW-UAW Bargaining Committee

The post Let’s Get Paid What We’re Worth (Bargaining Update #32–33) appeared first on Harvard Academic Workers.