More than 600 Harvard University Dining Services workers voted on Tuesday to authorize a strike over wages they say are subpar at a time when the university’s endowment has grown, the workers’ union said in a statement.
“Harvard, home to the largest university endowment in the world, is letting its dining workers fall behind those at other area universities,” UNITE HERE Local 26 – a union for workers in the hospitality industries of Massachusetts and Rhode Island – said in the statement. “Dining workers at Northeastern and even Lesley University earn more than Harvard’s,” the statement continued.
The vote clears the way for what the Harvard Crimson says could be the first dining hall strike since 2016 if there is no breakthrough in negotiations.
“I do think the clock is ticking a little bit here,” Carlos R. Aramayo, president of UNITE HERE Local 26, said in a press conference Tuesday, the Harvard Crimson reports.
“Folks have been working without a contract now for the entire semester, and I think there’s an impatience that we should be really getting to a serious conversation.”
The pending strike has the backing of more than 1,000 students who signed a petition calling for the University to give the dining hall workers a fair deal. The strike looms amid reports that Harvard’s endowment jumped to $68 billion after posting an approximately 27% investment return.
Union reps say they are struggling to make sense of why Harvard won’t pay its dining workers what other institutions pay, even though Harvard ended fiscal year 2026 with an operating surplus of $100 million on a $6.7 billion revenue base.
“They came to the table asking for a contract they could build a life on, and Harvard answered by building up a surplus and adding more than $10 billion to its endowment,” said Aramayo, who added that the workers who voted to authorize a strike did so in order to “stop accepting the gap between what Harvard says and what it does.”
Harvard University officials have not posted any statements on the pending strike.
“Harvard can keep talking about its values,” Aramayo said. “It will be judged by its actions.”
