{shortcode-2b5bc82e715b24e71bcb273c57217e74fda7b92f}

Nearly nine months into contract negotiations, Harvard and its graduate student union have yet to agree on a single proposal.

At their fourteenth session on Friday, Harvard rejected 12 out of 16 outstanding article proposals presented by the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers. The remaining four are still under negotiation and were not presented at the Friday session.

The union has been negotiating for its third contract with the University since February, already surpassing the length of contract negotiations in 2021, which took eight months and a three-day strike.

The University’s responses on Friday herald further delays for already slow-moving negotiations. With no proposals on wage increases or economic benefits yet on the table, bargaining is likely to continue into next year.

Harvard has repeatedly rebuffed the union’s most strident demands so far. University negotiators rejected HGSU-UAW’s request for third-party arbitration in all discrimination and harassment cases at the Friday session, doubling down on a previous proposal that consolidated procedures under University policies.

Harvard negotiators also nixed the union’s request to require all workers represented by the union to pay fees for the second time and rejected a union proposal guaranteeing academic freedom protections for graduate workers in their teaching and research pursuits.

The University has signaled a desire to standardize contract language across unions currently bargaining. Harvard negotiators presented HGSU-UAW with offers on non-discrimination, academic freedom, and agency shop virtually identical to those proposed to the University’s non-tenure-track faculty union.

Nevertheless, bargaining committee member Denish K. Jaswal said the Friday proposals were a “slap in the face” for HGSU-UAW.

“We’re not here at the bargaining table offering new language because we think it’s fun — we think it’s because it’s necessary, and so the University’s flat-out rejection of almost all of our language proposals at this point is insulting,” she said.

HGSU-UAW President Sara V. Speller cited Harvard’s actions outside the bargaining room — including removing more than 900 students from the union, cutting course assistant pay, and appealing a case excluding lab-based Psychology Ph.D. students from the union — as cause for further frustration.

“We continue to hope the University’s robust to do list while under the threat of the Trump administration includes a contract bargained in good faith with the workers who play a fundamental role in generating the Institution’s wealth,” Speller wrote in a statement.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that the University “remains committed to bargaining in good faith” with the union.

“This includes clarifying University positions that are consistent with articles in the union’s previous two contracts, which were overwhelmingly ratified by its members,” Newton wrote.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.