About Us
A coalition for higher education
Higher Education Labor United (HELU) emerged from the concerted efforts of campus workers across the United States. Allied labor organizers coordinated a July 2021 summit with 50 union locals to plan a national strategy. Summit attendees, who included faculty, staff, and students working on all types of campuses, developed a shared Vision Platform. Members from AAUP, AFSCME, AFT, CWA, NEA, SEIU, the Teamsters, UAW, and UE, as well as many independent locals attended. Endorsers of the vision platform at that first summit became the initial members of HELU and launched the next phase of outreach and planning.
Organizing work has continued since that first summit, including a second three-day virtual summit in February 2022. Over 130 unions and allied organizations, representing over 550,000 workers at community colleges, professional schools, and major research institutions across twenty-eight states have now endorsed HELU’s Vision Platform. Many of these unions are bargaining contracts this year, and the coalition is organizing people and empowering them to join in even larger struggles. That is exactly what a progressive, cross-class, national labor movement focused on workplace rights, dignified wages, and racial, gender, and environmental justice can build.
HELU delegates and committees meet regularly to move the organization’s vision forward and coordinate work among union organizers. We welcome new participants in this work!
Our Vision
We envision a future in which higher education:
- Is treated and funded as a social good and universal right.
- Works for and is led by workers, students, and the communities it serves
- Secures our nation’s democratic future and serves as a vehicle for addressing inequities.
- Prioritizes people and the common good over profit and prestige.
- Redresses systemic oppression and pursues equity along lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, indigeneity, age, (dis)ability, and immigration status for students and higher ed workers across all job categories.
- Honors the right of all workers to organize a union and collectively bargain.
Read HELU’s full vision platform to learn more about our vision, the challenges we face, the opportunity to transform higher education, and the commitments we’ve made.
governance
General Assembly
HELU’s General Assembly meets four times per year. The General Assembly makes HELU’s most important financial, strategy, and policy decisions. It is composed of delegates representing each of HELU’s member organizations, chosen by those organizations. The number of delegates from each organization is determined by the size of that organization’s membership.
HELU Delegate Structure
The number of General Assembly delegates from any member union or organization is determined as follows:
- 2-500 members = 1 delegate
- 501-1,000 members = 2 delegates
- 1,001-3,000 members = 3 delegates
- 3,001-5,000 members = 4 delegates
- 5,001-10,000 members = 5 delegates
- For every additional 5,000 members over 10,000, member organizations are allotted an additional delegate.
Steering Committee
HELU’s Steering committee is elected by its general assembly. Read more about our Steering Committee here.
Committees
We seek to develop collective processes to learn and build with one another in each of the following program committees. Any member of a HELU member organization or HELU at-large member is welcome to join in committee work.
Budget & Finance Committee
We prepare and review HELU’s annual budgets, revies monthly budget reports for the Steering Committee, discuss organizational budget practices (including (c)3 vs. (c)5 activities), and manage updates to HELU’s Chart of Accounts and budget templates.
The HELU Budget & Finance Committee meets bi-weekly on Tuesdays at 11:00 AM ET / 10:00 AM CT / 9:00 AM MT / 8:00 AM PT.
For more information or to get involved, please reach out to budgetfinance@higheredlaborunited.org.
Media & Communications Committee
We develop communications that are timely, effective, and clear, that push forward HELU’s vision platform. We broadcast HELU’s vision and mission broadly through our website and social media, written content, and coordinated messaging.
For the fall 2026 semester, bi-weekly committee meetings are scheduled for the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 11 AM ET / 10 AM CT / 9 AM MT / 8 AM PT.
Coordinators: Helena Worthen, National Writers Union and Anastasia Schaadhardt, UAW 4121
National Coordinated Organizing Committee (NCOC)
The National Coordinated Organizing Committee (NCOC) aligns local struggles into national movements. We connect unions and coordinate coalition work among higher education labor organizations in a way that increases worker power. We support local organizing with resources and sharing the experiences of campus workers elsewhere.
Coordinators: Bret Benjamin (UUP) and Anke Wolbert (EMUFT)
Email: ncoc@higheredlaborunited.org
Task Forces, Working Groups, and Subcommittees
Contingency Task Force
We meet to address the needs of contingent higher education workers (such as adjunct faculty, non-tenure-track faculty, and short-term contracted professionals) across the U.S. through organizing, advising, supporting, and educating educators about labor precarity. Our work aims to eradicate exploitative adjunctification and precarious employment in higher education.
Coordinators: Joe Ramsey (FSU-MTA) and Holly Clarke (PSC-CUNY)
Email: jgramsey@gmail.com
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Organizing
HELU’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) organizing initiative focuses on coalition building and strengthening worker power across HBCU campuses. We work to unite workers across job classifications to address low pay, subcontracting, loss of benefits, and workplace retaliation. Through our legislative policy advocacy work, we urge candidates and elected officials to increase support for HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions.
Coordinator: Nick Temple, HELU
Email: nick@higheredlaborunited.org
Library Workers
HELU’s Library Workers group holds quarterly meetings to discuss shared issues and work together on systemic problems. Among other things, we build practice escalation plans, share organizing tactics and techniques, discuss library reorganizations, and perform power analysis/power mapping. We host quarterly large-group meetings with a smaller group that meets regularly to plan and grow our work.
Coordinator: Meghan McGowan, Wayne Academic Union
Pre-Contract Organizing
HELU pre-contract organizing is an initiative focused on bringing together union organizers and workers who do not yet have collective bargaining agreements, regardless of where they fall on the timeline of union recognition.
Coordinator: Tracy Berger, HELU
Email: info@higheredlaborunited.org
Outreach Committee
We develop and implement strategies to build HELU’s membership and power. Collaborating with other committees on communication, priority-setting, and power-building strategies, the Outreach Committee helps grow HELU’s membership while strengthening ties with current member organizations, coordinating shared actions, and more.
Coordinators: Carolyn Kube, UUP and TJ Acena, AFSCME 328
Politics & Policy Committee
HELU’s Politics & Policy Committee leads efforts to gather feedback on and write legislation around higher ed workers’ issues, such as College for All and public funding of higher education. We urge candidates and elected officials to champion our vision for the future of U.S. higher education and work to bring higher ed into political conversations at the local, state, and federal level.
Coordinators: Becky Givan (Rutgers AAUP-AFT) and Jenna Chernega (IFO)
Email: policy@higheredlaborunited.org
State and Regional Tables
Michigan
Description coming soon.
New Mexico
Description coming soon.
Pacific Northwest (Oregon & Washington)
Description coming soon.
Northeast
Description coming soon.
Pennsylvania
Description coming soon.