Harvard Academic Workers Will Strike Tuesday After Final Bargaining Session Ends Without a Deal

Key Points:

• Harvard’s non-tenure-track faculty and researchers, represented by Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers (HAW-UAW), will begin a strike on Nov. 10 after more than two years of bargaining without a contract agreement.
• Key unresolved issues include wages, family benefits comparable to tenure-track faculty, inclusion of stipend-funded postdoctoral fellows as employees, and union security provisions, with the university offering a 3.5% across-the-board raise, which the union disputes as insufficient.
• The union has agreed on most contract terms such as just-cause protections and workload limits, but Harvard has refused to accept union security clauses, which are standard in other Harvard union contracts.
• The strike is expected to disrupt courses heavily reliant on non-tenure-track instructors, with picketing planned alongside striking graduate students and ongoing negotiations continuing amid uncertainty about the strike’s duration.
• This action follows other recent labor disputes at Harvard, including a graduate student union strike and dining services workers authorizing a strike, highlighting broader tensions over worker compensation and conditions at the university.