HELU in the News

Some faculty that are already strongly unionized, like Jenna Chernega, president of Inter Faculty Organization in Minnesota and a professor of sociology at Winona State University, have joined with the coalition Higher Ed Labor United (HELU), a newer group focused on building coalitions of different types of workers on campus and working across the unions that represent […]

The energy behind the creation of HELU came from people in organizations like the Debt Collective, Scholars for a New Deal, the unions representing workers at Rutgers University (which were forced into joint action by the university’s austerity response to Covid-19), Jobs with Justice, the multiple arms of the contingent faculty movement, and the Bernie

The Thursday flyer distribution is supported by Higher Education Labor United, a national labor organization, and other Boston Area non-tenure-track faculty unions. According to Gulesserian, following the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visa Program certification, HELU expressed interest in organizing in support of the University. “Higher education is under attack, and

A coalition of labor unions representing faculty and other higher education workers called for free college and more Thursday—the same day House Republicans passed their reconciliation bill, which would cut Pell Grants and target postsecondary education in other ways. The federal policy agenda is from Higher Ed Labor United (HELU), which seeks to unify all

College and university faculty, staff, researchers, and students are fed up. And for good reason: high-handed administrative and government attacks on curriculum, faculty governance, and tenure; the recent revocation of more than 1,700 previously authorized visas—hundreds of which have been restored—issued to international scholars and students; complicity between university policymakers and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE); and restrictions on how race, gender,

Faculty-student pairs set up “anti-fascist office hours” at three locations on the Northwestern University campus. Faculty, students, and staff created anti-fascist art at the University of Hawaii. American Association of University Professors members combined membership drives with tabling about the critical issues facing higher education on 30 campuses. And in New York City, 4,000 people

About 150 protesters rallied at Columbia, which had been the scene of huge pro-Palestinian protests last year. They gathered on a plaza outside a building that houses federal offices, holding signs emblazoned with slogans including “stop the war on universities” and “censorship is the weapon of fascists.” The protests were organized by the Coalition for

Sean O’Brien, a Wayne State University academic services advisor and member of the Higher Education Labor United steering committee, said he believed the problems facing higher education were so large that only a nationwide union of workers in all sectors would be able to exert sufficient force against the federal government. One strategy he promoted was for

With universities across the U.S. facing attacks from the Trump administration that “have been compared to the worst of McCarthyism,” as one professor said, students, staff, and faculty on more than 150 college campuses are planning to participate in a National Day of Action for Higher Education on Thursday. “What is at stake is the

On April 8, 2025, the Labor for Higher Education Union hosted the Kill the Cuts. This protest was to bring attention to the federal funding cuts that are being made and their impact on scientific research. During an interview with Shun Kobayashi, an associate instructor in the Comparative Literature and Languages Department, he explained that