Bret Benjamin, United University Professions and Co-Chair, HELU National Coordinated Organizing Committee
The participants in the Northeast Regional Bargaining Conference produced a higher ed bargaining platform they called the Amherst Compact to guide coordinated collective bargaining. It is now gathering formal endorsements from the 55 unions that sent participants as well as other locals in the Northeast.
Because the Northeast is heavily unionized, a bargaining platform provides an opportunity for public coordinated organizing to galvanize cross-union solidarity that can produce important wins for higher ed workers across the sector. However, the principle is much the same for campus workers in states that do not have public sector or higher ed collective bargaining. Many of the principles in the Compact will be shared by higher ed workers across the country. Whether we organize and fight for contract provisions, for collective bargaining itself, or for the general public good, regional organizing strategy is small enough to be effective and big enough to have power.
Here are short excerpts from the 2,000-plus word Amherst Compact, which will also be presented at the February 25 HELU General Assembly. Note how they echo the HELU Vision Platform:
…As unions representing the workers who make higher education happen, our members are uniquely positioned to change the status quo. We are food service, custodial, grounds and maintenance, clerical, security, research, technical, teaching, professional staff, medical, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral workers. We work in community and technical colleges, public colleges and universities, and private institutions of higher learning. We make higher education work.
…The nine states of the Northeast – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – comprise a union-dense region of the country with substantial cross-state overlap in our higher ed labor markets. We believe it is time for a regional bargaining strategy to leverage the power of workers across job categories and institutions to raise the standards of work, learning, research, care, and the integrity of educational programs in our higher ed and academic medical systems.
Core areas of coordinated bargaining for higher ed unions include:
- …Protecting and Expanding Collective Bargaining Rights: We must protect, defend, and expand collective bargaining rights for all who work on campus.
- …Fair Compensation: In a time of marked inflation and spiraling wealth inequality, we need fair pay for all higher ed workers with an eye towards eliminating inequities and attending to our lowest paid, most vulnerable members.
- …Strengthening Job Security and Fair Working Conditions: We must end the crises of precarity, contingency, and outsourcing by bargaining durable job security and paths to permanency for higher education workers.
- …Expanding Accessible Health Care & Benefits: Healthcare is a human right and all workers should have the ability to retire with dignity. We need access to quality medical care, and guaranteed benefits including employer contributions to retirement.
- …Paid Leave Rights and Protections: All workers need paid leave rights and protections for health, personal, family, and professional reasons.
- …Supporting Research, Professional Development and Career Advancement: Higher education is predicated on establishing and maintaining expertise. Our jobs, therefore, require employer support for academic research and professional development. We likewise believe that all higher ed workers should have access to useful and fulfilling jobs with career ladders for promotion and opportunity as they grow. Higher ed workers whose jobs depend on external funding make critical contributions and deserve institutional support and job security protections.
- …Academic Freedom: Academic freedom stands on the foundation of job security for all higher education workers. We need stronger protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech, which are both under threat at this moment.
- …Creating A Safe and Healthy Workplace: Guaranteeing a safe workplace for all has been a foundational achievement of unions. Expanding that principle to ensure that all higher ed workers feel safe in our workplaces is and essential principle of higher ed unionism today.
In addition to this document, which can serve as a guide to contract development and enforcement, and as a reference for leverage when comparing norms during bargaining, the conference created a network of over 150 participants who learned from each other, collaborated on the Compact, and are now developing coordinated organizing models to build power across the sector. Given the success of the model HELU hopes to host additional summits in other regions of the country.