CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A group of Harvard University graduate students have voted to join the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, an unlikely union for academics.

The Boston Globe reports that 1,931 graduate students, including several hundred undergraduates in teaching positions, voted in a National Labor Relations Board-sanctioned election to join the union.

The election took place on Wednesday and Thursday, with a vote of 1,931 to 1,523 creating a bargaining unit of nearly 5,000 students. The union began successfully organizing graduate students at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1990, and since then has organized many campuses. The UAW now has 45,000 graduate students and 30,000 academic workers in its 400,000 person membership.

The union says students are looking for stability in wages, improved health care and bargaining power.