Labor Watch: Harvard Workers Strike Again, CSU Makes Deals

Members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union–United Auto Workers have been on strike since Oct. 27.

Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

As its faculty union prepares to strike, California State University announced contract agreements with five other labor unions over the past several weeks. Most recently, the 14,500-strong California State University Employees Union—which represents health care, administrative, technical, operational and student support staff in the system—reached a tentative agreement that includes a salary-step framework with predetermined raises based on performance and years of service, plus a $3,575 bonus in December.

“This tentative agreement reflects the CSU’s commitment to reaching fair and responsible agreements with our labor partners while recognizing the important contributions of CSUEU-represented employees across the university system,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a news release. “We look forward to the ratification process and to continuing our work with CSUEU on behalf of the employees who help our universities serve California’s students and communities.”

Four other shops—United Auto Workers Local 4123, which represents academic student workers; Academic Professionals of California, which represents academic advisers and career counselors; the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39, which represents engineers, maintenance personnel and technical workers; and the Statewide University Police Association—also inked deals with CSU. All of the new contracts include a similar step system for salaries, and they are awaiting ratification votes, according to the news release.

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But not all CSU labor unions are satisfied. About a year into bargaining, the California Faculty Association opened a strike vote Oct. 26. Faculty members and university officials remain at odds over academic freedom protections, salaries and workload. Members have until Nov. 19 to decide whether to authorize a strike. CSU’s skilled trade workers union—Teamsters Local 2010—also filed two new unfair labor practice charges against the system last month, accusing leaders of bad-faith negotiations and interfering with union actions, according to a union news release.

“CSU cannot refuse to bargain fairly with our members and then interfere with workers’ rights when they stand up and fight back,” Jason Rabinowitz, secretary-treasurer of the union, said in the release. “Our members have fought too hard for the wages and respect they deserve to continue being disrespected by CSU. These charges send a clear message that we will hold CSU accountable and keep fighting for fair wage increases and a strong successor contract.”

Strikes were hot in October. Several other shops, including unions representing Harvard University academic workers and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student workers, approved strikes. Meanwhile, the City Colleges of Chicago narrowly averted a planned strike. Also in this edition of Inside Higher Ed ’s Labor Watch, Tufts University sued its union over the reinstatement of a teaching professor, and U.S. Department of Education workers in Chicago raised concerns about their working conditions.

STRIKE ALERT: Members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union–United Auto Workers have been on strike since Oct. 27, when the 4,000-some graduate student workers walked off the job following a stalemate over wages, protections for international workers and grievance processes for harassment and discrimination. It is HGSU-UAW’s second strike this year; previously, the union struck for 40 days in the spring.

“Harvard has refused to offer meaningful proposals or schedule additional, on-the-record bargaining sessions. We are ready to bargain at any time,” Denish Jaswal, president of HGSU-UAW, said in a statement. “We would rather be teaching and doing research. But we need a contract we can live and work under. We are prepared to stay on strike until Harvard moves.”

Meanwhile, the MIT graduate student workers union set a Nov. 12 strike deadline. The union remains deadlocked with MIT officials over wages and international worker protections. If the two parties do not reach a tentative agreement with university officials before the deadline, the 3,000-plus members will walk off the job.

“We are asking for perfectly reasonable measures in this contract. Wages that keep up with the rising cost of living, protections for international workers in a precarious political climate, and for MIT to take back proposals they have put forward targeting the strength of our union,” Baltasar Dinis, a graduate worker and bargaining committee member, said in a news release. “We sit across from MIT’s corporate lawyers who respond to these issues with presentations about how they need to keep growing the endowment. Nearly seven months of bargaining have shown us that the MIT administration is completely out of touch with the experiences of the graduate workers who make MIT what it is.”

STRIKE AVERTED: The City Colleges of Chicago’s faculty and professional staff union averted a strike last month, reaching a deal hours before the deadline. The contract agreement includes annual cost-of-living raises, expanded parental leave, health insurance protections and safeguards against artificial intelligence, WTTW reported .

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“I am proud of our negotiating teams, of our members who were prepared to strike, and of this contract,” Cook County College Teachers Union Local 1600 President Tony Johnston said in a statement to WTTW.

TRYST AT TUFTS: Tufts University is suing its non-tenure-track faculty union, asking the court to vacate an arbitral decision to reinstate a professor who was fired for engaging in sexual activity with his girlfriend in his campus office, The Tufts Daily reported .

A student doing homework in the next room overheard Theodore Simpson, a teaching professor, “engaged in various sexual acts which were both audible and explicit,” according to the complaint. The student recorded the sounds and immediately reported it to Tufts’s Office of Equal Opportunity. When Tufts officials investigated, Simpson lied and said he had been watching a sexually explicit movie, Betty Blue .

After he was fired, the Service Employees International Union Local 509 brought the case to arbitration, where an independent arbitrator ultimately ruled that Simpson must be reinstated with a written reprimand and argued his conduct, which did not include penetrative sex, was not severe enough to warrant termination.

Tufts officials say their sexual misconduct policy doesn’t distinguish between types of sexual activity and that they have an obligation to remedy harassment and, therefore, dismiss Simpson. The case was filed in Massachusetts district court.

DON’T DRINK THAT: The union representing 2,000 Department of Education employees filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last month about unsafe working conditions at the agency’s regional office in Chicago. Employees say they have documented multiple instances of Legionella bacteria, which can cause severe pneumonia, in the water since 2023. Last month, an employee reported that an elevator “shook forcefully and appeared to descend at an increasingly rapid and uncontrolled speed,” according to a news release.

“The public servants in this building deal with unclean drinking water, faulty elevators, unsafe electrical work and an insect infestation,” American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman said in a news release. “It is unacceptable to expect professionals to work in an unsafe environment where their health and safety are at risk.”