Northeastern announced Aug. 20 that it would halt negotiations with the graduate student workers union, which has been trying for over 20 months to ratify its first contract with the university.
Tensions flared earlier in the year when the university put forth a final package proposal May 5 and gave Graduate Employees of Northeastern University-United Auto Workers, or GENU-UAW, members a June 5 deadline to accept or “risk” it being amended.
In an email to union members after releasing the proposal, the university threatened to claim impasse if the union did not accept its final offer. The union rejected the contract in June and proposed its own package offer at an Aug. 20 bargaining meeting.
Since the university suspended negotiations, the union has called for “collective action” among graduate students.
The union’s package proposal included proposals such as increased minimum wages and stipends, increased pay for doctoral students, increased healthcare coverage, protections for international student workers and neutral arbitration between the university and graduate workers.
In a statement to The Huntington News, GENU-UAW’s organizing committee said that the university’s May offer was “unacceptable.” Since then, the university sent a revised final package July 17, “removing any guaranteed stipend and hourly rate increases for September 1, 2025, and reducing minimum guaranteed stipend and hourly increases in the final years of the contract from 2.5% to 2%.”
“Admin’s current offer remains unacceptable to our members, as grads have discussed during multiple general membership meetings and in discussions with coworkers across the university; it’s lacking on many of our key issues, including pay rates that keep up with rising costs of living, guaranteed healthcare for all grad workers, and protections against harassment with a neutral third-party arbitration process,” GENU-UAW said.
The university directed The News to emails sent out to faculty and graduate students Sept. 4. Scott Merrill, Northeastern’s vice president of labor operations and senior labor counsel, declined to comment.
The Northeastern Office of the Provost released a statement Aug. 20 saying that GENU-UAW’s most recent contract “came nowhere close to addressing University concerns, and instead outlined proposals the University had previously told the Union were not acceptable.”
In that same update, the university said the union’s proposals on doctoral student pay, faculty autonomy — which it said is potentially undermined by the union’s demands — as well as economic demands are “not acceptable.” They added that expanding what qualifies as “work” was at odds with applicable law.
Northeastern also said many demands were out of the scope of the union’s negotiations, including international student protections and the inclusion of fellows in the contract.
“It is unfortunate that bargaining has now become more about theater, where the Union encourages students to ‘bring friends’ to negotiations and fuels misunderstanding of University proposals through misrepresentations on social media and in campaign materials,” the university wrote in the Aug. 20 statement.
On Sept. 9, Debra Franko, senior vice provost of academic affairs, emailed graduate students with information about negotiations and potential strikes.
“The path to a contract remains open if the Union decides to accept the University’s revised offer,” Franko wrote. “We hope that happens, but the Union is showing no willingness to agree and has been soliciting student support for a strike, and posting on social media that students must take ‘collective action’ to ‘force’ the University to meet its demands.”
Thomas Sheahan, Northeastern’s executive vice provost, also sent emails to graduate students the same day.
“The UAW cannot force you to strike,” Sheahan wrote. “If the UAW calls for a strike, all graduate students may choose to continue working instead of sacrificing stipends or hourly pay. [Boston University] graduate students went on strike without stipends or hourly pay for 6 months last year before ultimately taking the university’s package offer.”
Following the most recent bargaining session, GENU-UAW posted a video to social media where union members expressed their frustration. Zach Greenfield, a doctoral student studying mathematics and member of the GENU-UAW bargaining committee, described the union’s disappointment in the Aug. 20 video interview.
“The only thing that will get this administration to move is force,” Greenfield said. “They are not interested in hearing our words, so they will have to feel our actions instead.”
Graduate students voted to officially certify the union in September 2023 after years of organizing and opposition from the university. The UAW was elected to represent the graduate students the same month, and negotiations have been ongoing since December 2023.
In March 2025, Sarah Gillespie, a doctoral student and former member of the GENU-UAW’s bargaining committee, told The News that other UAW members said Northeastern has a reputation among higher education institutions of being a notoriously difficult employer.
“When I’ve talked to UAW staff being like, ‘Can I get a sanity check? This feels really tough. How are we doing compared to other unions, in your experience?’ This is my first union,” Gillespie said. “They say that Northeastern is one of the toughest employers they’ve worked with in the higher education realm.”
Though the two parties stand at a stalemate, the union still plans to advocate for its proposals.
“Despite the administration’s blatant disregard for our concerns, we will continue fighting for a contract that gives grads the security, dignity, and respect we deserve,” GENU-UAW wrote in its statement to The News.
