HELU Blog

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 […]

By Chris Robe, UFF (United Faculty of Florida) and Florida Atlantic University Ever since Florida became ground zero for the attacks against public higher education roughly five years ago, many misconceptions circulate regarding how academic freedom functions down here and the ways in which it is being compromised. A recent job candidate confided to a

From the HELU Michigan Coalition: HELU has been quietly engaged in regional organizing for the past year. There are regional organizing projects going on in the Northeast, around the Philadelphia area, in the Pacific Northwest and in New Mexico, among others. The work of these projects is specific to their region. This is a report

Bret Benjamin, United University Professions and Co-Chair, HELU National Coordinated Organizing Committee The participants in the Northeast Regional Bargaining Conference produced a higher ed bargaining platform they called the Amherst Compact to guide coordinated collective bargaining. It is now gathering formal endorsements from the 55 unions that sent participants as well as other locals in the

Karin Rosemblatt, HELU delegate and UAM-UMD (United Academics of Maryland, University of Maryland) President In states where there are holes in public sector collective bargaining enabling legislation, the fight for the right to unionize and bargain has to take place in the legislature and on the ground. On February 10, 93 University of Maryland-College Park colleagues

Brendan McGovern, UUP (United University Professions), Binghamton Chapter President On February 17 and 18, UUP member Alcibiades “Alex” Lazaro Ramirez González and his husband, CSEA member Yannier “Yan” Vázquez Hidalgo, walked out of federal detention and back into the arms of their union family. Their ordeal began last October when they arrived at a scheduled

Faith Ericson, Delegate to HELU from the Minnesota Inter-Faculty Organization (IFO) There is a student I haven’t seen since the first week of the semester. He’s in the National Guard and has been deployed to respond to the mayhem brought on by the “Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities. Another student tells me she watched

Mike Budd, Delegate from United Faculty of Florida In our continuing series on what’s happening in Florida, including this and this, here’s the latest news on the state of Florida’s attacks on the teaching of sociology and the fightbacks by UFF and its allies.   On Feb. 18, 2026, the United Faculty of Florida (FEA/NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO), sponsored

United Campus Workers (CWA 2265) hosts town hall series beginning Saturday, Feb 21 To my colleagues and comrades in HELU, from Harry Szabo. President, UCWVA We know that in states where public service workers have Collective Bargaining rights, the outcomes aren’t just good for those workers. They are also good for  the community and for