HELU Articles
June 2026 HELU Chair’s Message
Throughout June, we connected with hundreds of HELU member unions, leaders, delegates, at-large members, and fellow workers across the broader higher ed labor movement. At Labor Notes in Chicago, it was incredibly energizing to spend time in person identifying shared concerns, discussing coordinated strategies, and gearing up for federal fights necessary to rewrite the future…
How California’s Adjunct Pay System Collided with Wage Law: The Long Beach Class Action and the Hidden Structure Behind Adjunct Compensation
by Scott Douglas In early 2026, the Long Beach Community College District in Long Beach, California, agreed to an approximately $18 million settlement in a class-action wage-and-hour lawsuit brought by adjunct faculty. The case was backed by the California Teachers Association, which retained outside plaintiff-side employment counsel to litigate the claims. The significance of this…
May 2026 HELU Chair’s Message
From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121: What’s next? In the months leading up to May Day, higher ed workers from coast to coast built power around a simple but powerful set of demands to assert a worker-centered vision for higher ed. More importantly, workers, students, and alumni on campuses and metro…
Due Process Resolution for Contingents at AFT Convention
By Geoff Johnson, At Large member of HELU and President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus At the AFT National Convention in Washington, DC on July 16-19, 2026, the Adjunct/Contingent Caucus will present a resolution calling for AFT to create model language and legislation for Due Process rights for Contingent faculty. This resolution is backed by…
How the Crackdown on the Encampments Revealed Higher Ed’s MAGA Consensus
Helena Worthen with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, HELU individual member, historian of American colleges and universities, author of Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Inventing the Liberal University (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of Degrees of Liberation (SUNY Press, forthcoming). Listen to…
Resistance to right-wing state interference with Florida’s colleges and universities: An interview with Robert Cassanello, President of United Faculty of Florida
The United Faculty of Florida (UFF) is a statewide union representing close to 10,000 public higher education workers in Florida. UFF has chapters in all public universities (12 in total). We have 16 chapters in the state college system and 4 graduate student chapters. UFF represents mostly instructional faculty and instructional support faculty. HELU asks: In…