From Helena Worthen, Chair, HELU Media & Communications Committee
On September 16, 2024, HELU held a press conference in Philadelphia to celebrate the release of a Statement of Unity. The statement lays out progressive higher ed policy for the next presidential administration. The statement is signed by 12 national unions and labor organizations including the AAUP, AFSCME, AFT, CWA, NEA, OPEIU, SEIU, UAW, UNITE HERE, UE, and HELU. The press conference was hosted by the Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, AFT Local 2026, represented by Co-President Rainah Chambliss and Secretary Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela, who is a member of HELU’s Steering Committee. Speakers included NEA president Becky Pringle, AFT President Randi Weingarten, AAUP President Todd Wolfson, CWA Vice President for Public, Healthcare, and Education Workers Sector Margaret Cook, HELU Chair Mia McIver, Colena Sesanker on behalf of SEIU, Ethan Hill on behalf of UAW, and Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Daniel Bauder.
Whether the news was the press conference itself, the content of the Unity Statement, or the fact that twelve national unions and labor organizations got together to sign it depends on how much the beholder knows about higher education unionism and today’s moment of crisis in the higher ed industry.
The crisis itself has been in sight for decades: student debt, state disinvestment, enrollment declines, political attacks, crumbling infrastructure, denial of climate change and global historical facts, outsourcing of staff, and weakening of faculty roles are all aspects of the plundering of a public good. However, the sight of the logos of all these different unions printed on the same page together has made a lot of people blink. We have not seen these unions work together in such a clear way that is also focused on higher ed.
It’s clear, however, that they should, and that’s why HELU exists. Higher ed is a giant industry; in some cities it is the major employer. Workers in it range from operating engineers, tech specialists, all kinds of healthcare workers, landscapers, building service workers, librarians, drivers, and all kinds of teaching or teaching support personnel, including faculty. Higher ed is also a heavily unionized industry despite the fact that some states do not have public sector collective bargaining enabling laws and a few even prohibit higher ed institutions from signing a contract with a union. HELU, which has a bottom-up wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast mission, covering all job positions and all 50 states, was in a place to bring the unions and labor organizations that represent or support higher ed workers to make clear that they can and will act together to make the next administration chose the right fork.
The Statement of Unity is actually part of a broader strategy. At HELU’s founding Convention in May 2024, delegates voted to have the Politics and Policy Committee (one of the standing committees of HELU) plan and hold road shows in order to advocate for the higher ed policy goals described in the Unity Letter. The first of these will be back in Philadelphia on October 17 followed by the next one in Michigan on October 22. HELU National Director Ian Gavigan explained that influencing the election is the short-term goal but the longer term goes beyond that:
These will be “town hall” style events for local higher ed workers to speak about their issues in political terms. Higher ed workers need a national formation like HELU to form the connective tissue of a real movement, but we also need to raise our consciousness of our local struggles as fundamentally politicized ones. We need to help people to raise their expectations and begin to demand transformation from the political system itself, not solely from our bosses, many of whom are really just operating in grooves laid by politics and the last big political realignment of the late 20th century.
The Statement of Unity, which itself was the product of organizing, is a tool for this ongoing organizing effort. Dates and locations for additional Road Shows will be posted on the HELU website.
Read more about the Statement of Unity and HELU Chair Mia McIver’s statement about it at: