From Bret Benjamin, HELU Steering Committee, UUP State University of New York System.
To win the higher education system we want will require national, coordinated, multi-union organizing campaigns that build collective power across the sector. As one important step towards this broader goal, HELU is organizing a Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit in Amherst, MA on Jan 9-10, 2026.
Every gain that workers scratch and claw to win through collective bargaining—however big or small—should be celebrated. And higher ed unions have won quite a bit in recent years. It’s important to take stock of the new contractual standards that higher ed unions have set around compensation, job security (especially for contingent faculty), health benefits, due process protection, leaves (including parenting leaves), anti-discrimination protections, workload protections, access to professional development and career movement, academic freedom, retrenchment protections, and much more. At the same time, as those of us who have bargained contracts know all too well, no individual union’s collective bargaining agreement can win the labor-centered vision of higher education that we all want, and that HELU has been working to articulate. Even the best contracts take place in the context of slashed public expenditures, the staggering costs of privatized healthcare systems, and the normalization of a national higher education system that balances its budgets on the backs of workers, students, and communities.
So far, over 130 union leaders and members with bargaining experience from more than fifty higher ed unions have registered, including locals affiliated with AAUP, AFT, NEA, SEIU, Teamsters, UAW, Unite Here, and USW. The Summit will undertake detailed analyses of existing contract language across our diverse range of contracts to identify trends and models that can be duplicated and expanded. We aim to develop an aspirational bargaining platform of shared demands and principles that can help orient and support the ongoing bargaining of higher ed locals, across our distinct employment contexts. Sessions will be dedicated to considering the needs of particular higher ed occupation types (e.g., adjunct and contingent faculty, service and technical staff, grad workers and postdocs, academic and healthcare staff, and tenure-line faculty) as well as institution types (public, private, community colleges, etc.). Attendees at the Summit will discuss contract expiration dates and explore possibilities of aligning not only demands but also contract campaigns and other strategic actions.
Collective bargaining alone will not, of course, resolve the crisis of higher education. The contracts we negotiate depend on broader political and historical contexts, including the basic fact that many higher ed workers lack collective bargaining rights. Nevertheless, collective bargaining remains an essential tool in labor’s capacity to assert and enforce its demands. The union-dense Northeast, where collective bargaining rights are broadly held, offers an important strategic opportunity to develop sectoral coordination around key labor demands. A Bargaining Summit there offers us an opportunity to deepen coordinated organizing among locals, establish regional floors and standards across an integrated labor market, and build capacity within the higher ed labor movement. The enthusiastic response from the 50+ locals who will be attending suggests that HELU is filling a crucial need—working to broaden and strengthen the “collective” in collective bargaining.