Many campus workers today are demoralized, dispirited, and disempowered. And many are channeling personal disillusionment into political consciousness and transforming individual grievance into collective organizing. But how do you do that when you don’t have a union?
Join HELU on Nov. 12 & 19 at 7pm ET / 6pm CT / 5pm MT / 4pm PT for two linked events:
- Tuesday, November 12 – Organizing Strategies and Victories in Non-Collective Bargaining Contexts
- Tuesday, November 19 – How to Win Collective Bargaining Rights: Lessons from Campaigns in Progress
Everyone who attends will be able to participate in interactive dialogue and mutual exchange. Expected featured speakers from Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin will set up conversations about advancing courageous and unprecedented organizing.
Frequently Asked Questions – Non-Collective Bargaining Contexts
What is a “non-collective bargaining state?”
Technically, workers in all states have the right to self-organize to bargain collectively, i.e. organize a union and try to bargain contract. But not all workers: only private sector workers, who are covered by the federal National Labor Relations Act. “Private sector” is distinguished from “public sector.” “Public sector” means state, county, city, or special district government and state-level, tax-funded entities like community colleges, state colleges, and research universities. While some states have state laws that support – the term is “enable” – collective bargaining in the public sector, about half of our states do not. So when we say “non-collective bargaining state,” we mean states that do not currently have enabling legislation like the federal labor law for the public sector.
In 35 states, some workforces have enabling legislation. But even in these, higher ed workers may not be among those covered by it. In at least 15 states, student, staff, and faculty workers are organizing to defend higher education even though they don’t have enabling legislation that entitles them to collectively bargain.
Does HELU include higher ed workers in non-collective bargaining states?
Yes. HELU’s motto is “wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast” organizing.
But why should HELU focus on non-collective bargaining contexts?
HELU came together because it was clear, after the 2020 election, that there had to be a national strategy for saving higher education as a public good, and that none of the unions that represent higher ed workers was going to be able to pick this up as their project alone. Some of them were too small, some were dominated by K-12 teachers, some like the UAW had many other kinds of workers in them, and some would have to get past 100 years of competing with each other. Also, none of them encompassed all the kinds of labor that constitute the higher ed workforce. So it became clear a new organization with a national vision to unite different types of higher ed workers from different types of higher ed institutions was going to have to come into being. And a national strategy means a strategy the includes all higher ed workers in Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, and so on. HELU can do this, and no single national union can.
What do the big unions think about this?
They are on board. CWA’s United Campus Workers locals are leading the way, particularly in the southeast and southwest. See our national Statement of Unity. They understand that HELU is playing a specific role to unite higher ed workers.
Why else should HELU focus on non-collective bargaining contexts?
Where you find the worst of the worst, there is also the best of the best. This is true of places like Texas and Florida where the fight to protect higher education is hottest and sharpest, where many bad things are happening that don’t even make the headlines. At the same time, while some people are leaving these states, others are staying and fighting. These are the people we will hear from about how they stick with it day after day, what counts as a win, what keeps them going, what they have accomplished so far. Let’s gather and listen to some of these people who are figuring out how to win in the battlegrounds where higher ed is most besieged.
But are they even allowed to form unions in states like those?
Yes. No one can stop people, even in Mississippi, George, or Texas, from forming a union. A union is a group of people who organize themselves to do things together (the legal term is “engage in concerted activity”) to improve their working conditions or work lives. That’s just freedom of assembly and so far, we’ve still got that. What is not enabled, and sometimes actually prohibited, is signing a collective bargaining agreement. So yes, they can form unions, even if they can’t yet negotiate a union contract.
What might be a hoped-for takeaway from these events?
Laws are written by people, and un-written by people. When we describe some of the states in the US as “non-CB states” we mean that the people there have not, or have not yet, pulled together the kind of power that they need to get the right words turned into laws. HELU’s vision includes reaching out to them to leverage our power, give them a jump, and keep our wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast vision rolling ahead.