Our current contract expires in May 2026; to win a strong second contract we need to continue building out a foundation for mass participation.

We won our first contract through mass collective participation, and we will likewise need to build the foundations now towards mass collective participation for our second contract. To this end, we’ve invested time and member dues in building our Local’s infrastructure to set the groundwork for 2026, by
- Building out the strike fund;
- Rolling out training for our steward network;
- Setting up a union HQ for grad workers to meet outside of the reach of our employer;
- Making strategic hires with organizing and administrative staff.
Issues which are widely and deeply felt– such as high cost of living, international worker rights, and expanding the standards for workplace protections– must be addressed in our next contract.
We plan to implement a robust, participatory bargaining survey to understand our membership’s contract priorities and invite them to participate in building the contract campaign.

Our power to make change comes from our unity as grad workers across MIT. In 2025, we aim to:

Lay the groundwork for workers to be confident in taking large collective actions, up to and including a supermajority-participation strike if necessary to win our membership’s demands in 2026.
Ramp up one-on-one conversations for deep organizing and to build ever-stronger ties with other campus groups.
Expand participation across all sections of MIT grad workers to build engagement and a broad, inclusive steward network that can represent the diversity of our membership.
Protect our rights as workers across campus and across unions; we cannot reliably rely on the administration to respect our rights in the face of right wing government policies.

Our members should be empowered to participate in the decisions that most impact them. The leaders on our slate are committed to:

Orienting every incoming 1st year graduate worker to welcome them into UE 256 and help them understand their benefits and protections.

Building membership so every worker has a voice in our union.
Deepening engagement in union democracy, such as through a broad bargaining survey and general membership meetings.
Empowering workers to enforce their rights through the contract and our union’s tools. We want every worker to be able to discuss with their coworkers about the issues they face and take action together to make positive change on the issues they care about.

Between now and May 2026, we need to protect the rights we won in our first contract. We will:

Continue to build the steward network so every grad worker knows their steward and has a personal point of contact if they’re experiencing an issue or problem on campus.
Ensure workers understand and fully utilize their benefits through contract education outreach.
Actively push back against MIT’s contract interpretations which harm our workplace benefits and protections, such as in areas like vacation policy and unjust & arbitrary discipline.
Leverage our collective experience over the past year to improve contract enforcement.

The challenges we face as workers at MIT reflect the challenges and struggles workers are facing across the academic industry. The BOLD slate will:

Stand up against the right wing assaults on higher education and the labor movement.
Protect immigrant worker rights – our membership and the academic workforce come from locations all around the world and are part of a global research community, and we will not allow xenophobia to be used as a tool to divide us.
Strengthen and expand our connections with other campus organizations and unions across higher ed to weather the political attacks on organized students and workers.

OUR PLATFORM