HELU Blog

From Bret Benjamin, HELU Steering Committee, UUP State University of New York System. To win the higher education system we want will require national, coordinated, multi-union organizing campaigns that build collective power across the sector. As one important step towards this broader goal, HELU is organizing a Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit in Amherst, MA on […]

Each of these projects grew organically out of a felt need as we set out on our wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast organizing project. Steering committee members, delegates, and at-large members then stepped up to make them happen. In some cases (international worker organizing, for example) projects have been paused; in others (May Day 2026-2028) organizing has

By Juliet Cassone Saxton, UCWAZ UA Chapter Secretary; Asa Henry, UCWAZ NAU Chapter Vice Chair Elect; and Justine Hecht, UCWAZ Local Secretary and a HELU Delegate In October 2025, the Trump Administration took its next swing at higher education — offering nine universities a Compact for Higher Education. The compact was a poorly attempted bribe

By Harry Rose Szabo, President of CWA 2265, University of Virginia In a time when we are forced into short cycles of reaction against Trump policies, collective bargaining is a long-term proactive measure that would secure public sector workers a state labor board, guarantee the right to negotiate as a group, and challenge an 80-year-old

On November 7, a coalition of higher ed workers and students stood together outside the corporate headquarters of Apollo Global Management to send a message to its CEO Marc Rowan, a key architect of Trump’s higher ed compact: Hands Off Higher Ed. The demonstration in midtown Manhattan was one of over 100 events organized across

Daniel Birchok, President, University of Michigan Flint-AFT AAUP & Anke Wolbert, HELU Steering Committee & President, Eastern Michigan University AFT Local 9102 On November 5 & 10, the Michigan HELU Coalition successfully hosted HELU’s first candidate town hall. In this particular case, the candidates are competing for the democratic nomination for the Michigan U.S. Senate

Shelly Baskin, Delegate to HELU from United Campus Workers Southeast (CWA 3821) Faculty and staff in the Georgia University system are being told that they have to come in to work five days a week or get laid off. Some of these workers were originally hired as remote workers and live at significant distances from their

Brendan McGovern, President, United University Professions Binghamton Chapter New York has always believed in investing in its people, public higher education, health care, infrastructure, social supports. We send far more in federal tax revenue to Washington than our state receives back in federal aid. In short, we are a giver state. And now we are being

Meghan McGowan, Health Sciences librarian and member of and HELU delegate to Wayne Academic Union (AAUP-AFT Local 6075) President Trump’s so-called “compact” (actually a threat) asks higher ed administrative leaders to agree to a long list of changes that will fundamentally end academic freedom across the board as well as impact student loans, admissions, grant