By Michael Ziegler, GLO-AFT Local 6516 President and HELU Delegate
In July, the Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University (GLO-AFT Local 6516) partnered with HELU to host a workshop at which representatives of different unions could discuss and strategize around discrimination and harassment and grievance procedures. This began as a project of HELU’s Northeast Regional Bargaining working group, but quickly pivoted to a national audience with an online option. Members of GLO presented on our ongoing negotiations for a third contract for graduate workers, as well as how we have been navigating attempts by Brown University to modify relevant provisions of our contract.
Denish Jawal, president of the Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118), and Sam Layding of GETUP-UAW 5124 at UPenn each led effective breakout sessions focused on organizing around grievances. Representatives from throughout the Northeast and the country as a whole joined us for this event. Through our large group and breakout discussions, we gained valuable insights for the fights ahead. We face administrators who seek to claw back hard-won protections against workplace discrimination and harassment that are independent of Title IX and related internal procedures.
HELU’s next related event will be in-person in Chicago on October 24 – Fighting for the Future of Higher Education: Labor Organizing, Bargaining, and Policy Advocacy in the Age of EdTech and AI. We are seeing AI and EdTech being pushed on workers in community colleges, four-year institutions, and research universities, public and private alike. HELU and our partners in UIC United Faculty AFT Local 6456 are hosting a day-long deep dive into higher education, EdTech, and AI. This workshop is aimed at understanding and producing contract language that protects workers; strategizing together to create a national organizing model against the technoligarchy; creating legislative frameworks locals can take to their state legislatures and Congress; and deepening workers’ understanding of the issue. Register here.