More than 30 members of Northeastern’s graduate student union picketed outside Fenway Park at the university’s undergraduate commencement ceremony May 11, where more than 6,400 undergraduates turned their tassels.

Earlier this week, Northeastern offered the Graduate Employees of Northeastern University-United Auto Workers, or GENU-UAW, a final package proposal for the union’s first contract, giving it until June 5 to accept the current terms. The union wrote in a May 5 update on its website that if approved in its current state, the contract would be “the worst grad worker union contract in the nation.” After 24 negotiation sessions, GENU-UAW and the university remain at odds about several hot-button issues, including compensation, health and dental insurance and anti-discrimination protections.

“Bargaining is about coming to the table. It’s about compromise on both sides,” said Nicole Gerzon, a cybersecurity doctoral student and a member of GENU-UAW’s organizing committee, at the picket. “And Northeastern has just been showing that they’re unwilling to do it at all. They keep pushing this ‘All or nothing, take it or leave it’ proposal, and that doesn’t really show us that they want to come and discuss details.”

After gathering by the Kenmore T Station, the union members split into two groups and headed to different sides of the stadium around 2 p.m. as graduates, family and friends entered Fenway Park in droves. Union members — donning bright red shirts with the United Auto Workers logo — handed passersby flyers and engaged people in conversation about their demands, particularly compensation. 

“Stand up, stand down, Boston is a union town,” union members chanted.

After 17 months of bargaining against the backdrop of a divisive political climate, the union has yet to certify a contract. So far, the university has proposed three contracts. But the union said the May 5 final package proposal is largely unchanged from the proposal Northeastern initially put forth in January 2024. 

“The position that Northeastern’s been taking throughout this entire thing is trying to discredit the bargaining committee,” Gerzon said. “Every time we come to the table, they tell us we don’t know what our program requirements are. They tell us that we don’t know how law works when we have people on the bargaining committee who have multiple degrees in law, [and] we have people on the bargaining committee who have been in their Ph.D. programs for five or six years.” 

This marks the second consecutive year of students using commencement as an opportunity for advocacy. Last year, one pro-Palestine demonstrator was arrested at the undergraduate commencement May 5 after walking toward the stage with hands smeared with fake blood as crowd members chanted “Aoun, Aoun, you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.” The 2024 commencement ceremony came during a time of heightened tensions on campus, just days after 98 individuals who participated in a 48-hour pro-Palestinian encampment were arrested.

GENU-UAW has previously used university events as a means to put pressure on Northeastern, which the university has strongly criticized. In a May 9 statement to The Huntington News, Northeastern’s Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul called GENU-UAW’s intent to picket outside commencement “disheartening.” 

“It is disheartening that the United Autoworkers Union is planning to disrupt the graduation ceremonies for thousands of students and their families instead of putting Northeastern’s proposal to their members for a vote,” Nyul wrote. 

The future of negotiations appears unclear for now. GENU-UAW said that its bargaining committee received an email from the university “threatening” to claim impasse if the union does not accept its final package offer, which fueled the union’s decision to picket at commencement. While the university gave the union until June 5 to respond, the union wrote that the deadline is “fake and arbitrary” and that it is determined to get the university back to the bargaining table. 

“You’ll definitely see us show up at basically every Northeastern event to let it be known that this isn’t okay,” Gerzon said.