From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121:
Precarity continues to persist as an increasingly permanent feature of higher ed institutions. Postdocs across the sector are organizing to change that. Hugo Plombat is one of 1,500 Postdocs at the University of Michigan (UM-PRO) currently fighting for a first contract that includes a fair pay scale, increased job security and immigration protections, and family leave after unionizing last year. They are joining a growing movement of early-career scientists and researchers across the country that has been growing over the last twenty years. In 2008, thousands of Postdocs at the University of California system won the first Postdoc union with UAW Local 5810 (now UAW Local 4811). Since then, countless Postdoc unions have formed, including the Postdocs at the University of Washington (UAW Local 4121) that won collective bargaining rights by changing state law in 2018.
Earlier this year, Postdocs at Washington State University expanded early-career researchers’ power in our state after winning a first contract and joining UAW Local 4591. Across the country, a strong majority of Postdocs at Yale voted to join Unite HERE Local 33; Northwestern Postdocs started negotiating a first contract after forming NUPU-UE Local 1151. Postdocs at Columbia, Mt. Sinai, and Weill Cornell are part of building worker power across New York City with UAW Local 4100.
In 2023, Postdocs at Rutgers (AAUP/AFT Local 6323) organized alongside faculty, staff, and grad workers to win significant pay raises — and more crucially, contract language guaranteeing that the University’s central fund will cover pay increases if the department or preexisting grants did not budget for them. This win was a direct result of the solidarity and power achieved through a wall-to-wall strike that brought workers together across job categories.
Higher ed institutions have repeatedly been put on defense over the last few years. It’s time to change that. We need more wins that fundamentally shift the balance of power towards workers – and the only way to do that is by building a unified movement across job categories taking on ambitious fights at the federal, state, and local levels.
This year, Hugo is also one of the nearly 70,000 early career, full-time scientists and researchers in Postdoc positions across the US conducting cutting-edge research, often on fixed-term contracts with little job security. Over the last forty years, the number of such contingent research positions has quadrupled across our sector. Decades of disinvestment away from a simple idea – that higher ed infrastructures can and should serve the public good – set the stage for exacerbating the existential threats we navigate today. Cuts to crucial lifesaving research, continued attacks on immigrant students and workers, consolidation of academic programs, and more. Without a progressive vision for the future of higher ed backed by a movement with the power to make it a reality, these attacks will continue to drain our campuses and our communities.
Over the last month, HELU delegates and member unions have been articulating a proactive vision for higher ed on our terms – and organizing to win it by:
- The Politics & Policy Committee has been preparing proactive federal legislation by gathering feedback on the current iteration of the C4A bill, specifically around Access and Debt & Contingency and Working Conditions.
- Member unions in Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Minnesota, and more are planning nonpartisan Higher Ed Labor Townhalls and other events ahead of the November elections to activate members and recruit champions in public office.
- A subgroup of the National Coordinated Organizing Committee (NCOC) has been organizing an event in Chicago on October 24: “Against the AI Campus: Building Power in Higher Ed.” This event is open to all! Join us in Chicago! Register here.
I hope to see you next month in Chicago.
In solidarity,
Levin Kim