From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121
The struggle for immigration justice and the struggle to re-orient higher ed for the public good are one and the same. Both institutions have long been driven by the same logics of austerity, contingency, and authoritarian control. I know, like many of us, that this work is personal.
“Maintaining legal presence” in the US as an international student worker means that every year, the arbitrary alphabet soup of visa categories, immigration forms, campus and government agencies to navigate grows longer: F-2, SEVIS, I-20, OPT, EAD, J-1, I-485, I-94, EAP, F-1, ISS, ISO, DHS, ICE… the list goes on.
“Maintaining legal presence” in the US as an international academic worker has also meant that every year, there’s learning and growth, struggle and hope, and finding unexpected homes in all kinds of communities: Normal-Bloomington, IL; Ann Arbor, MI; Boston, MA; Seattle, WA… the list goes on.
My immigration story starts at Illinois State University and Heartland Community College in July of 2001 – before either the SEVIS database or ICE existed – and continues through various higher ed institutions. My experience of America is this patchwork of campuses that have become increasingly enmeshed with the immigration system over the last 25 years.
And these campus communities have also shown me that a better world is possible. As workers in a sector with one of the fastest growing rates of unionization, many of us have experienced firsthand the power and necessity of taking collective action. Many of us have stitched together better worlds on our campuses already – through bargaining strong contracts, building solidarity through 1-1 conversations, and moving our coworkers through apathy and fear. And we know – especially in moments like this – that we need to build durable networks of solidarity on and across campuses that empower each and every one of our coworkers into action, like what hundreds of higher ed workers across Minnesota did on short notice last week.
At the beginning of the month, over 150 participants across 50+ unions across the Northeast gathered in Amherst for the Northeast Regional Bargaining (NERB) Summit to discuss shared issues and strategies for coordination to raise the floor for all workers across our sector through bargaining strong contracts. At the end of the conference, participants finalized a draft of the “Amherst Compact” for broader engagement from members and additional union locals across the 9 states in the Northeast.
Last night, over 40 representatives from 25+ HELU member unions participated in the first HELU Candidate Questionnaire Workshop organized by members of the HELU Politics & Policy Committee. As HELU Politics & Policy co-chair Becky Givan put it, it’s time for us to define a positive vision for higher ed on our own terms: the questionnaire and workshop is only the first step in setting a worker-centered policy agenda for higher ed and building the power necessary to win it.
We have a world to win, and there’s no better time to be building a fighting higher ed labor movement.