Coalition for Change: HELU’s Work in Summer 2024
From Mia McIver, HELU Chair, UC-AFT Local 1474
Dear HELU Members and Friends,
Since our Founding Convention in May 2024, HELU leaders have been hard at work carrying forward our wall to wall and coast to coast vision for higher education as a public good. We’ve been building HELU’s coalition and setting up internal structures that will help us realize our goals.
HELU had already been expanding our political power when the strategic horizon shifted considerably with the entry of Vice President Harris into the 2024 presidential race. For the past several weeks, we’ve raced to extend our network of aligned partners and forcefully communicate our policy platform. I want to especially highlight the efforts of Jenna Chernega (Inter Faculty Organization) in Minnesota and Aaron Krall and Jeff Sklansky (University of Illinois United Faculty) in Illinois, with whom HELU has worked to jointly ask state and federal officials in those states to publicly support high-quality, fully-funded, free public higher education, with thriving wages, secure jobs, and other fair and equitable labor practices.
All of our HELU committees are now meeting regularly to implement the resolutions we passed at our Founding Convention. We would love for all HELU member unions to have a role in shaping HELU’s direction. There are opportunities to serve on our Politics & Policy, National Coordinated Organizing, Outreach, Media & Communications, Budget & Finance, and Constitution & Bylaws committees and the Contingency Task Force. We encourage broad, diverse, inclusive, and representative participation from rank and file workers. If your union doesn’t yet have members on HELU committees, drop me a note at mia@higheredlaborunited.org so we can get your members involved.
One of the great pleasures of the past couple months for me has been connecting in person with many HELU activists. When I traveled to the AAUP Summer Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit, I not only spoke with AAUP and AFT members about academic freedom as a working condition, but I also got to spend time with HELU Steering Committee members Sean O’Brien (Wayne Academic Union) and Anke Wolbert (Eastern Michigan University Federation of Teachers). We visited the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, learned about Labor@Wayne, and marveled at the vast scope and minute details of Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals.
I also met with HELU Media & Communications Committee Co-Chair Evan Bowman (AFSCME Local 328) while he was attending the AFSCME International Convention in Los Angeles, where he spoke to HELU-aligned priorities during AFSCME’s resolution process. HELU Vice Chair Levin Kim (UAW 4121) always braves LA traffic when they’re in town so we can get coffee and brainstorm ways to strengthen worker power throughout higher ed.
Other HELU leaders have been busy as well: Secretary-Treasurer TJ Acena (AFSCME Local 328) met with Scholars for Social Justice; our other Media & Comms Co-Chair, Helena Worthen (National Writers Union), attended the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor conference along with HELU delegates Joe Berry (AFT Local 2121), and David Milroy (San Diego Adjunct Faculty Association); and Danielle Aubert (Wayne Academic Union) represented HELU at Progressive Central 2024. Joe Ramsey (Faculty Staff Union) and HELU’s Contingency Task Force hosted two Zoom events, the first a Contingency Contract Language Exchange and Strategy Session with the Massachusetts Teacher Association, and the second with the Debt Collective on Breaking the Chains of Debt and Contingent Labor.
None of these exciting initiatives could have happened without our two new HELU staff members, National Director Ian Gavigan and Operations Director Tracy Berger. Ian and Tracy have contributed essential support, insight, and labor to organize HELU’s day to day functions, develop structures and policies, build strong relationships with and among HELU members, and advance our programmatic work. Hiring Ian and Tracy was only possible thanks to solidarity pledges by HELU member unions. It’s clear that with full-time staff, we’re now well-positioned to create and take advantage of enormous strategic opportunities. The takeaway: your union’s solidarity pledge is directly increasing HELU’s capacity and power!
In that vein, I want to extend a very special solidarity greeting to our newest HELU member union, Temple Association of University Professionals. Welcome TAUP! If your union hasn’t joined HELU yet, click here to become part of our movement to reclaim American higher education.
Yours in solidarity,
Mia McIver