HELU Blog

From Helena Worthen, Chair, HELU Media & Communications Committee Does HELU need an international coalition partner? The Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) concluded its fifteenth bi-annual conference on August 9 in Gatineau, Quebec, drawing approximately 100 participants from Mexico, the US and Canada. This marked nearly 30 years of a project that is both […]

From Joe Ramsey, HELU Steering Committee member & Chair of the Contingency Task Force On July 31, HELU’s Contingency Task Force (CTF) and the Debt Collective co-hosted a deep dive discussion into two related crises facing higher ed workers and students alike: debt and labor contingency. Around 50 people joined for two hours on a mid-summer

From Jane Gabin What will it take to convince those paying for higher education that exploiting contingent faculty is bad? While there have been a number of initiatives calling attention to the widespread use of contingent labor in higher education, there has been little reflection of this by 1) counselors (those who advise high school

From Helena Worthen, Chair, HELU Media & Communications Committee In the recent Contingency Task Force discussion on job security for contingent faculty, the Garcetti case was mentioned. Here is a non-lawyer’s shakedown of what Garcetti means when we’re talking about job security, whether one is contingent or not. Basically, Garcetti created a false logic to

From Daniel Bayer GREENSBORO – North Carolina presently has the second-lowest union membership in the United States, after South Carolina. But North Carolina has a long history of union organizing. To understand the increasing activity among AAUP higher education advocacy chapters, it is important to learn something about the labor history of North Carolina on

by Josh Dohmen, UCW Mississippi Josh Dohmen wrote the following to respond to common misconceptions about tenure. 

From Joe Ramsey, HELU Steering Committee and Chair of the Contingency Task Force The passing of Bill Lipkin is very sad news indeed. Bill Lipkin was a serious, passionate fighter for adjunct faculty rights across New Jersey and within HELU. From the very beginning, Bill was a key member of HELU’s organizing efforts (even before

From Evan Bowman, co-chair of the HELU Media & Communications Committee and IT Chair of AFSCME Local 328.  In a university-wide email sent late in the afternoon on Thursday, June 6th, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) President Danny Jacobs and his executive team provided “An update on our ongoing Strategic Alignment work, including necessary

Note: With interest in Higher Education Labor United (HELU) growing among higher education workers, The National Council of Faculty Senates requested that a representative from HELU address their Annual Meeting. I spoke at their hybrid meeting originating from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and began by introducing myself and HELU. What follows is a

From Helena Worthen: Why is CWA campaigning to create a federal public sector collective bargaining law? Their campaign message explains: There is currently no federal law that guarantees public sector workers the freedom to organize or engage in collective bargaining. That’s why we are demanding Congress pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act to