Ian Gavigan, HELU Executive Director
On January 9 and 10, more than 150 delegates representing 55 union locals from the nine states of the Northeast — Pennsylvania to Maine — gathered in Amherst, MA for HELU’s first-ever “Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit.”
The summit aimed to build a sense of community and solidarity, to develop delegates’ understandings of the current state of higher education collective bargaining agreements, and to build unity around shared goals for a cross-state collective bargaining strategy to raise the floor for workers across the region.
Day one of the summit dealt primarily with contracts. Delegates broke into groups based on broad job categories, including service and technical staff, academic and research staff, full-time and tenure-stream faculty, adjunct and contingent faculty, and undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral workers. Delegates participated in panel discussions and small group workshops to dig into the current realities of their contracts, looking at them from a wide range of perspectives. Groups focused on compensation, job security (including a special focus on contingency), immigrant workers’ issues, workload, benefits, anti-discrimination and Trans issues, and more.
Day two of the summit dealt with forward-looking strategy. Delegates divided into year-based cohorts to discuss current plans for contracts that expire in the coming years. Later, they broke out into institution-type and state-based groups to think through, concretely, what coordination could look like to raise the floor across the region in our key contract areas.
Day two concluded with the assembled delegates editing what they called the “Amherst Compact,” a statement of shared bargaining priorities, which now will go back to the participating locals for discussion and consideration. Delegates agreed to call a follow-up meeting to move forward discussions for shared organizing strategies in March.
HELU’s National Coordinated Organizing Committee and a planning committee consisting of more than ten union locals played key roles in designing and implementing this summit and numerous active HELU leaders and delegates supported the Summit through small-group facilitation and taking on useful tasks over the course of the two days. HELU wishes to thank MTA member Casey Krone who served as a major support person during and in the lead-up to the summit; without Casey, our 150+ participants would not have had space to meet or food to eat! Further, HELU Chair Levin Kim (UAW 4121), NCOC Co-Chair Bret Benjamin (UUP), and Politics & Policy Co-Chair Becky Givan (Rutgers AAUP-AFT) all took the lead in planning and implementing the entire agenda, including leading many of the plenary sessions.
The success of the summit is self-evident and HELU might consider taking the model elsewhere in the country where there are clusters of states where such a summit might take root.
List of participating locals:
- 32BJ SEIU
- AAUP Plymouth State
- AAUP-BHSNJ
- Adelphi University AAUP
- AFT Local 1819 at Rhode Island College (RIC-AFT 1819)
- AFT Massachusetts
- AFT New Jersey
- Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine (AFUM)
- Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF)
- Classified Staff Union (CSU-MTA-NEA) – UMass Boston
- Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges (The 4Cs – SEIU Local 1973)
- Contract Faculty United at NYU (CFU-UAW 7902)
- Dutchess United Educators
- Educational Freedom Project
- Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia (FSFCCP-AFT Local 2026)
- Faculty Staff Union at the University of Massachusetts Boston (FSU-MTA-NEA)
- Federation of Reading Area Community College (AFT-PA Local 3173)
- GET-UP-UAW
- Graduate Employee Organization at the University of Massachusetts Boston (GEO-UAW 1596)
- Graduate Employees Organization at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (GEO-UAW Local 1596)
- Grant and Contracts Union at UMass Lowell (GRACE/MTA/NEA)
- Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118)
- Hofstra AAUP
- Maine Education Association (MEA)
- Maryland Classified Employee Association (MCEA AFT Local 1935)
- Massachusetts Association of Professional Administrators (APA-MTA-NEA)
- Massachusetts Community College Council (MCCC-MTA-NEA)
- Massachusetts Society of Professors UMass (MSP-MTA-NEA)
- Massachusetts Society of Professors UMass-Lowell (MSP-MTA-NEA)
- Massachusetts State College Association (MSCA)
- Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)
- Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) Faculty Federation-AFT Local #4272
- New Jersey Education Association (NJEA)
- Part-time Faculty Association of Maine (PATFA AFT Local 4593)
- Professional Staff Association at NJIT
- Professional Staff Congress/CUNY
- Professional Staff Union (PSU) (MTA/NEA) – UMass Amherst & Boston
- Rutgers AAUP-AFT Local 6323
- Rutgers Adjunct Union PTLFC AAUP-AFT Local 6324
- SEIU Local 509
- SEIU Local 888 UMass Lowell Professional Staff chapter
- Service Employees International Union
- St. John’s University AAUP
- State Employees Association (SEA-SEIU 1984)
- Teamsters Local 8
- Temple Association of University Professionals, AFT local 4531
- Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA-AFT Local 1766)
- UNITE HERE Local 217
- UNITE HERE Local 26
- UNITE HERE Local 33
- United Auto Workers Local 2322 at UMass Amherst GEO, RA/PMU, PRO
- United College Employees Fashion Institute of Technology at SUNY (UCE-FIT NYSUT-AFT Local 3457)
- United Council of Academics at NJIT (UCAN) – New Jersey Institute of Technology
- United Steelworkers Staff Union of Pitt
- United University Professions at the State University of New York System (UUP-NEA-AFT Local 2190)
- Universities of Maine Professional Staff Association (UMPSA-NEA)
- University Staff Association (MTA-NEA)
- USW Local 1088