MIT graduate student workers rallied before the university’s commencement Thursday, while those at Harvard picketed outside Harvard Yard during graduation ceremonies.
Over 100 people gathered outside MIT’s Lobby 7 at 77 Massachusetts Avenue to rally in support of graduate student workers’ push for a new contract. Most of those gathered were members of United Electrical Workers Local 256 – MIT Graduate Student Union, which represents 3,000 graduate student workers, and Service Employees International Union Local 32 BJ, which represents around 600 MIT facilities workers. They spent an hour demanding that administrators stop stalling contract negotiations.
The current contract expires on Sunday. Only four half-day bargaining sessions have taken place since April 24. Student workers want health care coverage, fair wage increases and protections for immigrant workers against the Trump administration to be included in the new contract.
“MIT administration has been stalling,” fourth-year graduate student Sara Wilson told the crowd. “They’re refusing to negotiate on the protections that every graduate worker in this crowd deserves.”
The rally occurred hours before MIT’s OneMIT commencement ceremony, as graduates dressed in black robes and caps waited in lines stretching down Massachusetts Avenue. They watched rallygoers wearing red t-shirts hold signs saying, “MIT workers won’t wait” and “One union, one fight” and chant “We got the power” and “MIT works because we do.”
Wilson, area chief steward of the School of Engineering and a member of the union’s bargaining committee, said that the union’s proposals are based off of input from thousands of student workers who completed bargaining surveys. She told the crowd administrators are threatened by the union and are using negotiations to try to dismantle it.
“MIT is attacking our union shop because a strong union wins strong contracts,” Wilson said. “And they want to weaken our union so they can give us a weaker contract for this contract fight and every future contract fight to come.”
Another speaker was Rich Olszewski, director of higher education bargaining for SEIU Local 32 BJ. He said his union began negotiating with MIT administrators last week on a contract that would provide living wages for families of four, reduced healthcare costs, protections for immigrant workers and funds for attorneys’ fees and professional development courses for employees, paid for by MIT. He told the crowd MIT, in spite of funding and enrollment challenges, still has a lot of money.
MIT administrators did not respond to requests for comment.
State Rep. Mike Connolly said the graduate student union asked him to attend and has his full support. “I think MIT can and should do more” to give workers in both unions stronger contracts, he said.
Connolly said he chose not to attend Harvard’s commencement ceremony hours earlier because he didn’t want to infringe on the student picket there, where graduate student workers have been on strike since April 21. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu earlier this week said she would not serve as Class Day speaker at Harvard Law School on Wednesday because it would mean crossing the picket line.
Denish Jaswal, president of Harvard Graduate Students Union – United Auto Workers Local 5118, estimated between 300 and 400 workers picketed between 5:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. In a text afterward, Jaswal said “We distributed thousands of buttons, flyers, grad cap toppers and fans to attendees to show their support for our union’s efforts, disrupted [administration] portions of the commencement ceremony with loud instruments (especially vuvuzelas) and had several large marches and pickets once the ceremony wrapped up. Many grad workers also ended the [Graduate School of Arts and Sciences] diploma awarding ceremony with HGSU chants.”
The HGSU represents over 4,000 Harvard student workers.
A strike may also come from MIT’s graduate student union, said its president, Lauren Chua. She said it would require a vote of union members, and it was important “to reach everybody and understand what it will take [to go on strike],” Chua said. “We don’t want to go on strike but if that’s what it’s going to take to settle a fair contract, that’s a decision for every member in our union to make.”
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