INCLUDED: All full-time and regular part-time non-tenure-track employees of Harvard University performing teaching or research, regardless of funding source (paid directly or indirectly), and who work at Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, or Harvard Divinity School, including Lecturers, Associate Senior Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, Postdoctoral Research Fellows, Instructors, Teaching Assistants, Associates, College Fellows, Curriculum Fellows, Curriculum and Pedagogy Managers, Fellows, Junior Fellows, Benjamin Peirce Fellows, Preceptors, Assistant Directors, Directors, Research Assistants, Research Associates, Research Fellows, Research Scientists, Researchers, and Engineers. 

EXCLUDED: The Division of Continuing Education, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Dumbarton Oaks, the Center for Hellenic Studies, Professors in Residence, Professors of the Practice, Professors Emeriti, visitors with a primary tenured/tenuretrack appointment at another institution, Visiting Graduate Students, undergraduate students, all employees covered by another union’s bargaining unit definition, managers and guards, nonprofessional employees and supervisors as defined in the Act.

Others permitted to vote: The parties have agreed that all individuals in a “stipendee” classification (fellows, postdocs, researchers) may vote in the election but their ballots may be challenged since their eligibility has not been resolved. No decision has been made regarding whether the individuals in these classifications or groups are included in, or excluded from, the bargaining unit. The eligibility or inclusion of these individuals will be resolved, if necessary, following the election. 

INCLUDED: All full-time and regular part-time employees in the Harvard Law School clinical programs who provide clinical legal education to law students and/or legal services to clients or communities. This includes: Clinical fellow, senior clinical fellow, clinical instructor, senior clinical instructor, staff attorney, senior staff attorney, social worker, and non-supervisory Managing Attorney, Assistant Director, Associate Director, Director, and others with similar work responsibilities, in the HLS clinical programs (comprising in-house clinics, and student practice organizations).

EXCLUDED: Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Clinical Professor of Law, Visiting Clinical Professor of Law, Assistant Professor of Law, Professor of Law, Professor of Practice, Visiting Professor of Law, lecturers with only academic appointments (i.e., those in charge of externship clinics), undergraduate students, all employees covered by another union’s bargaining unit definition, managers and guards, nonprofessional employees and supervisors as defined in the Act. 

There are two types of challenges: Not on the worker list and wrong location. 

• Not on the worker list. These are workers that the university administration failed to include on the official voter list, including workers that we have agreed to allow to vote challenged, such as stipendees (see “How do we know some workers will be voting challenged?” below). These challenged ballots will be set aside before the count. If, after the count, these votes could change the result, we would attempt to resolve the eligibility of these voters through continued discussions with the administration or—if they persist in seeking to exclude people, such as stipendees, who we know to be workers— through NLRB hearings.
• Wrong Location. The NLRB requires the administration to assign each voter to a single voting location to ensure one voter cannot cast multiple ballots. If they assign an incorrect location, such as assigning a voter who works in Longwood to a Cambridge voting location, they merely check to make sure that the voter did not also vote at their assigned location, and then the vote is opened and added to the pile before the count. Your vote remains confidential, no matter what. Check out more info below under “What happens to the challenged ballots?”

Whether you vote challenged or not, your vote will always be completely confidential. (In fact, writing your name on the ballot invalidates the ballot; the ballot must have no identifying features).

Yes! All workers (regardless of citizenship) have the same rights to participate in a union: US labor law does not distinguish based on immigration status in determining your rights. It is illegal for your employer to use your immigration status against you (e.g., threaten to report you to ICE for supporting a union). While foreign nationals are prohibited from participating in certain types of political activity (such as voting in local, state, or federal elections, or making financial contributions to candidates running for elected office), all workers, regardless of immigration status, have a right to vote in a union election. Thousands of international academic workers have voted in union elections (including here at Harvard!) over the past three decades. Furthermore, your vote is fully confidential: how you vote will never be shared with anyone, and the National Labor Relations Board, which runs the election, does not share information about the election (e.g., who voted) with US government agencies involved with immigration (e.g., ICE).

We plan to use our collective bargaining power to win better protections for international scholars, as have many other academic unions, and we encourage all workers to participate in our union!

The university did not agree to recognize all the workers in our union as part of our bargaining unit. In particular, they did not agree to recognize some stipendee researchers and some workers they claim are “supervisors”. Because we did not agree with the university’s assessment of our bargaining unit, we negotiated to have disputed workers vote with a challenged ballot. This allows us to use our power at the bargaining table to negotiate to include these workers in our bargaining unit while simultaneously beginning to address critical issues like pay that doesn’t keep pace with a skyrocketing cost of living, the lack of protections from abuse and discrimination, the insufficient childcare support, and more.

Harvard admins use the title generically, ignoring what contributions we make to the university and splitting us solely on the type of tax paperwork we receive. “Stipendees” describes anyone who does not receive a W2 from Harvard for the majority of their compensation.This includes includes researchers on fellowships paid through Harvard who receive a 1099 or other tax form, researchers working at Harvard whose compensation is not routed through Harvard (e.g., those on some NSF or foreign government fellowships; those paid by HHMI), and researchers who receive only the minimum W2-eligible income from Harvard to be eligible for benefits. It is also possible that you will fit under this criteria for “stipendee” and be on the main voter list, in which case, great – you will not have to vote challenged!

Harvard claims that researchers paid on stipends are not doing any work for the university. They imply that these researchers are completely independent, could do their research anywhere, and that their labor is not benefiting Harvard. However, we all know that postdocs, regardless of how we are paid, are all workers. We work at the same benches and in the same offices, attend the same meetings, and do the same experiments. We reject the administration’s efforts to deny union representation to some researchers based on the nuances of how we are paid. When we get to the bargaining table, together we will demand the admins respect our work and our right to a union to ensure we all earn the same protections and improvements. The only way to do this is to have the highest vote turnout possible, of stipendees, so-called “supervisors,” and any others whom the university is attempting to strip of our union rights. Together, we will sit across from admins and work to address our many concerns working here at Harvard.

To be clear, our union status has no impact on our tax filings nor how we are paid. Workers with training grants and other types of grants without tax witholding are in unions at Mt Sinai and Columbia, and in the graduate union here at Harvard, for example.

If the margin between YES and NO votes is greater than the number of votes subject to challenge, then the votes are not counted.

If the margin between YES and NO votes is less than the number of challenged ballots, then we will have to reach an agreement with the university as to whether the contested workers should be included in the final bargaining unit prior to certifying the election results, either through bilateral negotiations with the university or through NLRB hearings.

When and how will we determine whether the university recognizes those voting challenged as part of our union?

If we win the election by a margin larger than the challenged ballots, our union is certified and we can address the exclusion of the challenged voters at the bargaining table or through a petition to the NLRB. Researchers with training grants and other types of grants without tax witholding are in unions at Mt Sinai and Columbia, and in the graduate union here at Harvard. These cases set a strong precedent that the source of one’s funding does not determine their union eligibility.

If the margin between YES and NO votes is less than the number of challenged ballots, we will re-enter negotiations with the university. We will either reach an agreement with them through the bargaining process or, if Harvard refuses to allow worker’s votes to be counted, we can go to NLRB hearings. We remain committed to fighting for union rights for ALL non-tenure-track teaching and research workers at Harvard.

The only way to resolve our disagreement with the university prior to having an election would have been to go to NLRB hearings. This would have delayed our elections into the fall semester, which would delay us getting to the table to bargain over issues important to so many of us, like wages, job security, childcare support, international workers’ rights, and more! Our election agreement with the university gives us the opportunity to avoid lengthy hearings and get right to the bargaining table, where we will be able to negotiate to include disputed members of our unit while simultaneously making headway on winning improvements to our working conditions.

When you go to the polling place, your name may be on a challenge list, or on no list at all (we expect Harvard’s list to have errors). You will receive and complete a ballot, which you will put in an unmarked envelope, which goes into a larger envelope which you mark with your name and place in the challenge ballot box. The NLRB will tabulate the total number of challenge ballots separately from YES and NO votes in the final count.

If we resolve your ballot and agree to include you in the count, the outer envelope will be opened and your sealed ballot will be mixed with all the other unmarked envelopes from resolved challenge votes. Only then will the ballots be opened and added to the total tally. Your vote will ALWAYS remain confidential. Your name on the outer envelope will only be used for the purpose of determining whether or not your ballot will be included in the final count.

Voting subject to challenge demonstrates that you are willing to show up to say you’re part of our community and want to participate in this decision! The more workers who vote subject to challenge, the more the university knows that those whom they seek to exclude from our union want to participate in this decision-making. This, in turn, puts us on a firmer footing when we sit down at the bargaining table with university administrators— we will have more power to win recognition of our full bargaining unit!

In most cases, no! Job titles are used very inconsistently across Harvard. There are some job titles that are used in both HAW and HUCTW bargaining units, and are distinguishable by pay grade, work performed, degree required to do the work, or other features. If you work full-time in aHUCTW-covered staff position, then you are not eligible to vote in this election. Our unit definition excludes work already covered by the HUCTW contract. If you work multiple jobs, however, and one of the jobs is in HUCTW but the other is in our unit, then you are eligible to vote for HAW coverage of your non-HUCTW teaching or research work.

We recommend bringing your Harvard ID even though it is not required. This helps move the process along quickly and ensures that, if Harvard has given an incorrect name (in past elections they have dead-named some workers, for example), we can prove that you are eligible to vote.

The NLRB wants voting to proceed efficiently and to minimize delays. In normal circumstances, it takes only a few minutes. However, an inaccurate list or a large number of challenged voters may slow down the process. We will report regularly how quickly voting is going based on what we hear from voters.

HLS clinical workers can vote at:

• Pound Hall Room 101 (April 3: 10 AM – 12 PM, 2 PM – 6 PM)

FAS, HMS, and HDS workers can vote on both April 3 and 4 at: 

• Science Center 300H (10 AM – 12 PM, 2 PM – 6 PM)
• TMEC 446 (10 AM – 12 PM, 2 PM – 6 PM)

On April 4 FAS, HMS, and HDS workers you can vote at: 

• SEC LL2.208 (10 AM – 12 PM, 2 PM – 6 PM)

Harvard will assign you a voting location. FAS, HMS, and HDS workers can vote in any of the three locations above. However, if you vote at a place other than your assigned location, you will vote challenged until it is confirmed at the count that you did not vote at your assigned location, too. This prevents duplicate voting. HLS clinical workers can only vote at Pound Hall and only on April 3.

Unfortunately, no. The NLRB requires you to vote in person.

Do your best to help them determine if they should be eligible. If they are performing teaching or research, they are not a graduate student, and they are not a member of HUCTW, they should be eligible to vote. Please email us at harvardacademicworkers@gmail.com if you or your colleague are unsure about their eligibility.