Harvard, MIT and Tulane (from left) all saw some union action last month.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | APCortizasJr, Nate Hovee/iStock/Getty Images | Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
The Harvard Graduate Students Union announced Monday that its 40-day strike has ended “with the close of the academic year,” though the union has still not reached a bargaining agreement with the university. The strike—the longest in the union’s history—spanned the end-of-semester grading period and university commencement, which wrapped on Friday. Over the last several weeks, the university offered to expand benefits to all graduate student workers, provide dental coverage for Ph.D. students and increase its four-year raise proposal by 1 percent, the union said in a news release. These moves were the “first indication of engagement” from the university on the union’s priorities, the release said.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed
“Research laboratories ground to a halt, course material was left untaught, and assignments went ungraded,” the news release stated. “In communications that grew increasingly urgent as the semester drew to a close, Harvard pressured its faculty to report on their students and take on the burden of labor that student workers had withdrawn. In some cases, final exam and assignment requirements were diluted and AI was hastily deployed to assign grades. While neglecting to provide its student teachers pay parity at the bargaining table, Harvard offered new funding opportunities to hire replacement workers who could submit final grades.”
