After 14 months of fruitless contract negotiations with the Harvard University administration, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) walked off the job on an indefinite strike on April 21. According to the union, “Graduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until Harvard’s bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the union’s key issues: pay that keeps pace with the rising cost of living, recourse for harassment and discrimination, support for non-citizen students, protections for academic freedom, and ‘fair share fees’ to equitably distribute the expenses of union representation, among others.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with three striking graduate student workers about the issues at the center of this strike, and about what it’s like to live, work, and strike at the country’s richest university amid political attacks from the federal government, scandals connecting high-ranking Harvard officials to Jeffrey Epstein, and a nationwide cost-of-living crisis. 

Panelists include: Sara Speller, a fifth-year PhD student in the Music Department at Harvard and president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union; Zoë Feder, a seventh-year PhD student in the program in Biological & Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School and a research assistant in the Microbiology Department; and Jacob Wolf, a third-year PhD student and Teaching Fellow in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Additional links/info: 

• Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) website, Facebook page, X/Twitter page, TikTok, and Instagram
• Harvard Graduate Students Union Strike Update/FAQ Zine
• Lydialyle Gibson, Harvard Magazine, “Harvard graduate student workers strike”
• Noah A. Ferris, The Harvard Crimson, “Grad students rally outside Garber’s home as strike enters third week”
• Hugo C. Chiasson & Elise A. Spenner, The Harvard Crimson, “Harvard promised a ‘full’ review of its Epstein ties. Its own files reveal what it left out”

Featured Music: 

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits: 

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

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