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Updated June 26, 2025, at 10:09 a.m.
Harvard’s graduate student union plans to present a proposal requiring all workers represented by the union to pay fees, even if they are not members — a long-held request that will come to the table in a Friday bargaining session with the University.
Currently, only workers who opt to become union members are required to pay fees to the union, a structure known as an open shop.
Under the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers’ proposal, all workers represented by the union — including undergraduate course assistants and teaching fellows, as well as graduate teaching fellows and research assistants — would have to either become union members or pay “fair-share fees,” which are at most equivalent to union dues.
As of the spring semester, roughly 1,700 workers in the HGSU-UAW’s 5,500-person bargaining unit paid dues, set at 1.44% of their gross pay each month — the minimum generally required by the UAW. According to federal disclosures, the union brought in $757,578 in total dues last year.
Undergraduates paid dues at a lower rate. Of the roughly 800 in the HGSU-UAW, only about 8 percent paid dues.
According to HGSU-UAW financial secretary Simon A. Warchol, the figure could double under the proposed structure, called an agency shop — though members will need to vote on the rate of the fair-share fees first.
In previous years, most of the union’s funds have gone toward employing three external union organizers and defraying legal expenses.
“When HGSU goes in the negotiation room with the University, it’s basically our members on the bargaining committee — who are, again, all unpaid — plus we’ll have one person from UAW there, and then working against 10 to 20 lawyers and other very highly paid administrators and executives from the University,” Warchol said.
“From a legal standpoint, if we had more money, I think that we could afford just better representation,” he added.
HGSU-UAW union security representative Jordan Jensen said the union is hoping to secure a wage increase during negotiations that is large enough to offset the cost of union fees.
These wage increases have yet to come to the bargaining table. But as Harvard weathers funding cuts and battles the Trump administration in court, University negotiators may be less willing to give. According to bargaining committee member Denish K. Jaswal, University officials said at the union’s last bargaining session that they would be hesitant to take on new economic costs associated with union proposals.
The HGSU-UAW has proposed an agency shop in negotiations for both its previous contracts, but the University has repeatedly denied its request. It was one of a few key issues — including non-discrimination and compensation — that catalyzed union strikes during previous contract negotiations.
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton referred to the two agreements in a statement, saying that maintaining an open shop provides student workers with “freedom of choice regarding joining or paying fees to a union as a condition of employment.”
“The University has no interest in changing that fundamental right,” Newton wrote.
As during its last negotiations, the HGSU-UAW remains Harvard’s only campus union with an open shop. It is also one of only two Ivy League graduate student unions with an open shop.
William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College, City University of New York, said that agency shop clauses are “very common.”
“Having an open shop decreases the ability of the union to provide representation and also can set the stage, theoretically, for people who are unhappy with the union to try to do something to protest against the union,” he said.
Still, the amount of financial support derived from an agency shop can vary, depending on factors such as the bargaining unit’s size, worker salaries, and dues percentages.
Yale University’s 3,000-worker graduate student union made more than $1 million in dues and agency fees in 2024. But a campus union comparable to the HGSU-UAW in size, Harvard’s roughly 5,000-person staff union, brought in $281,980 in dues and agency fees last year — though worker salaries are comparable to or higher than those in the HGSU-UAW.
Both Harvard’s non-tenure-track faculty union and its undergraduate workers union have proposed agency shop clauses over the course of negotiations for their first contracts. University negotiators crossed out the language in the Harvard Academic Workers-UAW’s proposal.
Because workers can’t avoid paying union fees by deciding not to join under an agency shop, establishing one could encourage more graduate students to join the HGSU-UAW. Jensen wrote in a text message that an agency shop could strengthen the HGSU-UAW by bringing more workers into the organizing effort.
“With a fair duty of representation for every single in-unit member, the workload to support all worker needs right now is concentrated among a small group of committed organizers who devote a ton of time and effort to this work, but for whom high rates of burnout and turnover are really common,” she wrote.
“An agency shop should also help to mitigate this by having higher rates of engagement across the unit,” she added.
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.
