HELU Blog

Current Politics and Policy Committee Projects

by Helena Worthen, based on an interview with Thomas Gokey, Organizer for Debt Collective, a HELU member labor organization, and active with the HELU Policyand Politics Committee HELU’s basic idea of centering the hoped-for transformation of the higher ed sector around labor means confronting opposition on multiple levels. One level is obviously collective bargaining, where

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How HELU Organizes

By Carolyn Kube, Chair of HELU Outreach Committee, Steering Committee member for Healthcare Workers and Delegate from UUP. HELU organizes local unions and labor organizations, not individual people, although individuals can join. This makes HELU organizing different from organizing people into a local union. The idea behind HELU is that by drawing the local unions

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How does regional organizing fit with HELU’s wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast project?

By Ian Gavigan, HELU Executive Director. HELU’s vision of higher ed organized wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast rests upon the idea that union locals are the starting point for an organizing strategy that builds power at the sectoral level in order to wage a national fight against our broken system of higher ed finance and governance.  On

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May Day: A Labor Tradition and a Call to Action for Higher Education Workers

by Brendan McGovern, UUP Binghamton Chapter President. May Day, observed each year on May 1, is one of the most important days in the global labor movement. Its origins trace back to the struggle for the eight-hour workday in the late 19th century, when hundreds of thousands of workers across the United States went on

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Why all campus workers should join the May Day 2026 General Strike

by Joe Berry, Delegate from AFT 2121 and Helena Worthen, Delegate from NWU A general strike on May Day 2026 – what does that bring to your mind? Thousands of workers marching with picket signs and shouting angry slogans? That’s the classic media image. But it’s not actually what a general strike mostly looks like. What

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