HELU Articles
When Things Get Difficult, Opportunities are Born
By Michelle Granger, Contract Action Team Lead, NMSU-NEA; HELU-NM Delegate We know that current attacks on higher education are really attacks on the middle class and the workers who support our economy. It’s a hard time to be a worker in higher education. But when things get difficult, opportunities are born! In New Mexico, HELU…
UUP’s New AI Protections Offer a Model for Higher Education Labor
By Brendan McGovern, UUP Binghamton Chapter President As higher education unions prepare to gather in Chicago on October 24, groundbreaking protections negotiated by United University Professions are helping shape a national labor response to artificial intelligence. When higher education union members from across the country gather at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) on October…
Building Power in the Big Easy
By Michelle Lacey, AAUP Louisiana On the afternoon of May 1, 2026, a group of Tulane faculty, staff, and affiliates gathered in the pouring rain on Poydras Street in downtown New Orleans, eagerly awaiting the outcome of negotiations that had been ongoing since the fall of 2024. When a representative emerged, they finally heard an…
Blue-Collar and Grad Workers Unite While MIT Refuses Both a Living Wage
By Tracy Berger, HELU Communications Coordinator and member of United Campus Workers Colorado At MIT, an alliance between property service workers and graduate students shows the power of wall-to-wall organizing for living wages and workers’ rights against a shared, well-resourced management. On October 23, workers with SEIU Local 32BJ will bargain for the first time…
Pennsylvania Higher Ed Workers, Students, and Communities Come Together on September 28
By Seth Kahn, APSCUF member and faculty at West Chester University I knew we were in for a good day before the “Affordable College Now!” rally even began. By the time our bus of about 60 students, faculty, and staff from Cheyney and West Chester Universities got there, the scene was already LOUD. A student…
September 2026 HELU Chair’s Message
From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121: Precarity continues to persist as an increasingly permanent feature of higher ed institutions. Postdocs across the sector are organizing to change that. Hugo Plombat is one of 1,500 Postdocs at the University of Michigan (UM-PRO) currently fighting for a first contract that includes a fair…