HELU Blog

Holly Clarke, Member, HELU’s Contingency Task Force, Adjunct Lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY (PSC-CUNY), PSC Delegate Corinna Mullin, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Brooklyn College, CUNY (PSC-CUNY), Member of the Fired Four (recently rehired), PSC Delegate Joseph G. Ramsey, Chair, HELU’s Contingency Task Force, Senior Lecturer, University of Massachusetts Boston, Delegate to HELU, Faculty […]

From Anne Balay, Incoming General Member of HELU Steering Committee On December 5 & 6, the city of Detroit and Wayne State University hosted the incoming and outgoing HELU steering committee, other electeds, and staff for a strategic planning retreat and lesson handover. Many of us had roots in Detroit, and it was the perfect

From Brendan McGovern, UUP Binghamton Chapter President While attending a scheduled immigration hearing on October 29, 2025, Upstate Medical Center UUP member Alex Ramírez González and CSEA member Yan Vázquez, a married couple who fled repression in Cuba, were seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Both men followed the law and appeared for their

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