Catherwood LibraryILR School

In a historic moment for the university, Harvard graduate student TAs and research assistants voted to unionize late last week. Graduate student workers at the school have been pushing to unionize for decades. Their first unionization election was held in November 2016, shortly after the NLRB ruling in Columbia that incorporated graduate student-workers into the definition of a “worker” and granting them collective bargaining rights. The initial election was shrouded in controversy after the NLRB confirmed that the university-generated voter lists were incomplete. This time around, more than 3,500 eligible graduate students voted over the course of a two-day election. The results tallied in at 1,931 votes in favor, 1,523 against, and the grads are now full members of the Union-United Automobile Workers.