What happened?
A day after our contract expired, on July 1, 2025, the University informed us that they had unilaterally removed, or “carved out” over 900 student workers from HGSU based on how they are being paid by the University.
The Harvard administration claims that the carved-out workers are not employed by Harvard because they are funded through “stipends”, and “not providing services in exchange for the award,” and thus not covered by the contract. In other words, the University is claiming that if your funding is classified as a stipend by Harvard — even if you are doing full-time research a PI’s supervision in a lab as part of your degree — you are no longer an employee of Harvard, and are thus not eligible for union protections.
These student workers have been considered in-unit for the past eight years, regardless of how they were paid. According to the University, these workers would no longer have access to union-negotiated benefits or protections, including healthcare and dental reimbursement funds, childcare funds, emergency grants, international worker benefits, grievance procedures, and protection against overwork or harassment.
Why is this illegal?
This action violates a number of labor laws and contractual norms. First, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), employers are prohibited from making unilateral changes to the composition of bargaining units while a contract is expired and parties are still negotiating. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has made clear in past rulings that post-contract changes, especially when they undermine the union’s composition and bargaining leverage, are unlawful.
The carve-out also violates Article 1 (Recognition) and Article 2 (Titles and Classifications) of our contract, which had previously covered researchers “regardless of funding source.” These stipended researchers are doing the same work as their counterparts — yet Harvard is claiming they are no longer employees. HLS’s top labor lawyers, Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs, have confirmed our reading of the law, writing that the Harvard administration’s legal justification “runs counter to recent history in the law and at Harvard.”
Why does Harvard claim it is legal?
Harvard cites a 2023 NLRB regional decision involving MIT, where externally funded graduate researchers were ruled not to be employees under the MIT union. But that decision was narrow, non-precedential, and made under a different factual and legal context.
Moreover, our unit’s legal standing is stronger: it has included stipend-based researchers for years, since our founding, and our prior contract explicitly included researchers regardless of pay structure. The only thing that changed on July 1 was that our contract expired during an administration that is particularly hostile to labor rights — which does not give Harvard the right to alter the terms of employment unilaterally.
HLS’s top labor lawyers, Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs, have confirmed our reading of the law, writing that the Harvard administration’s legal justification “runs counter to recent history in the law and at Harvard.”
Why now?
Harvard’s decision comes at a moment of heightened precarity for graduate worker unions nationwide, and just one day after our contract expired. By removing over 900 student workers from the bargaining unit now, the University is exploiting a window of weakened legal enforcement from the Trump administration. The National Labor Relations Board currently lacks a quorum due to vacancies under the Trump administration. This means enforcement is slow or non-existent. A Trump-appointed board could even overturn past precedents that have given graduate workers hard-won rights. Their goal seems clear: to gut the union while hiding behind the legal uncertainty of the current political moment while we are in the midst of negotiating a new contract.
The 2023 decision involving MIT happened over 2 years ago – if they truly thought that that ruling meant that these workers were no longer employees, why not raise the issue then or at any other point under a Biden presidency?
What would the implications be for carved out students:
- Loss of all union-negotiated benefits (healthcare and dental reimbursement funds, childcare funds, emergency grants, international worker benefits)
- No grievance rights or union representation in harassment, bullying, or discipline cases
- No protection from unilateral changes to pay, workload, or termination (i.e., they can be terminated at any point without any cause or process)
- No legal recourse for pay errors or policy violations
- No representation at the bargaining table
What would the implications be for the Union:
- Significant reduction in union dues, jeopardizing our ability to enforce our contract
- Reduced collective power to negotiate better contracts for all grad workers
- Inequity: Workers in the same lab and year could receive significantly different pay and protections, depending on how they’re funded
- The potential dismantling of hard-won student worker rights to collectively bargaining
How is the Union fighting this?
We will not let the University use the Trump administration as a means of destroying our Union.
We have filed a grievance to challenge the University’s unilateral removal of student workers from our unit.
In the coming weeks and months, we will be pursuing all legal and organizing avenues to reverse this decision.
But we need your help. A first step is to sign this community-wide petition demanding that Harvard overturn this illegal, Trump-aligned action.
We also need you to join our fight by speaking with your fellow student workers, with your advisors and faculty in your department, and with administrations.
This fight starts with you. Please reach out to us with any questions, or about getting involved in the fight to preserve graduate student rights.
For more information, email us at [email protected].
