Catherwood LibraryILR School

Harvard’s graduate and undergraduate teaching and research assistants’ unionization, which was voted on in November, could be held off even further if the amount of challenged ballots continues to outweigh the amount of non-challenged ballots. Ballots are challenged if students vote in unassigned locations, but can also result from more complicated issues of students voting who are no longer on the university’s payroll. Thus far, approximately 1,000 ballots have been challenged, and will have to be individually reviewed. Organizers and Harvard employees will report to the NLRB’s Boston office on December 19th to continue counting and reviewing the challenge ballots. A final vote could be held on December 19th, but if delays continue the final vote will be held on December 22nd. Even then, challenge ballots could continue to delay a final outcome if the election is determined by a margin that is less than the amount of votes still being reviewed. If so, the NLRB would have to hold a hearing to determine whether or not the remaining challenge votes should be included in the final count.