HELU's Wall-to-Wall and Coast-to-Coast Report – January 2025

 

January 2025 HELU Chair’s Message This winter and spring, HELU activists are leading workshops in six states to develop platforms, advance coalitions, and share concrete, tested strategies for winning political change. I hope your union will join these opportunities so we can connect with and fortify each other. At a moment when we could go quiet and dark, we must choose to build up and out.... Read more.   Read more from Mia McIver Solidarity Asks Sign Petition to Save The Bridge Peer Counseling Center at Stanford Support LA Educators Displaced by Fires PSU-AAUP Strike Fund Announced Write a letter in support of Tufts Full-Time Lecturers Union From the HELU Blog: Why should healthcare unions join HELU? Profiteers have taken over our hospitals and put patients’ lives on the line. They are forcing the closure of hospitals that do not make a profit. Insurance companies tell us how and when to treat our patients. The corporatization of both academia and healthcare are ruining the quality of education and health respectively for many of our students and patients. Just as faculty and staff say, “Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,” healthcare workers say, “Our working conditions are our patients living or dying conditions.”... Read more. United Steelworkers Local 1088 is Newest HELU Member HELU keeps growing thanks to locals like 1088 who agree with our theory of change and also carry it on their workplaces to build a higher education system that works for all. Our strength and coalitional capacity increases thanks to the engagement of members within their locals carrying our strategic vision and program.... Read more.   “Alone our debts are a burden, but together they give us power.” Debt permeates nearly all aspects of today’s neoliberal higher education landscape. Our students accumulate mountains of debt while studying, and faculty labor under unpayable debt burdens which are particularly burdensome for contingent faculty, who often work multiple jobs so they can make student loan payments. The universities we teach and learn in are drowning in billions of dollars of debt owed to Wall Street.... Read more.   The NCSCBHE 2024 Directory: A Boon to Unions, Researchers and Educators The new 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions in Higher Education by William A Herbert, Jacob Apkarian, and Joseph van der Naald is an excellent update of the last 2012 comprehensive directory issued by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining for Higher Education and the Professions... Read more. Upcoming Events Defend the University: Lessons from Brazil & Argentina on Resisting Fascist Attacks on Higher Education Wednesday, January 29 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT Universities in the United States are under conservative and neoliberal attack. The Trump administration has promised to intensify the assault on higher education. In this Jubilee School discussion, leading Argentine and Brazilian scholar-activists that have fought to defend their public universities from the Milei and Bolsonaro regimes will share lessons on how to defend higher education against fascist attacks. Register here.   Register for January 29 Coalition for Action in Higher Education: National Day of Action Organizing Call Friday, January 31 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT On April 17, we will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education to assert our collective power to organize for higher education and protect the common good. Before April, we’ll be hosting a series of national organizing calls to plan the Day of Action events. Our first call is Friday, January 31, at 2pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT. Register here.   Register for January 31 Winning Healthcare in Minnesota and New Jersey for Contingent Faculty: Lessons from Oregon and California Wednesday, February 12 at 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT On April 17, we will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education to assert our collective power to organize for higher education and protect the common good. Before April, we’ll be hosting a series of national organizing calls to plan the Day of Action events. Our first call is Friday, January 31, at 2 pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT. Register here.   Register for February 12 Coalition for Action in Higher Education: Antisemitism, False Charges of Antisemitism, and Building Resistance Workshop Thursday, February 20 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT Part of building mutual solidarities, resistance, and narratives to fight false accusations of antisemitism is through widespread political education. PARCEO will share its approach and issues it addresses in its curriculum on antisemitism from a framework of collective liberation, as well as challenges that arise. Register here.   Register for February 20 Higher ed labor in the news College athletes were ready to unionize before Trump’s election. What now? – Vox Graduate assistants at Nevada universities call for union recognition amid struggles – KUNR Students, faculty argue Portland State University’s financial sustainability plan does more harm than good – OPB Union: Faculty pay not keeping up with community college enrollment – Daily Hampshire Gazette Unions make waves across Southern California campuses, learning from each other as they go – LAist Virginia higher education workers demand legislative action at Capitol rally – Cavalier Daily Want to support our work? Make a contribution. We invite you to support HELU's work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU's main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement. Contribute to HELU From Helena Worthen and Evan Bowman, Co-Chairs of the HELU Media & Communications Committee.