The explosion in organizing over the past thirty years has been driven by a worker-led response to the shifting model of higher education in the United States. Increasingly, universities that once focused on quality teaching and research are moving to a corporatized model that prioritizes the bottom line over the public good, while students are forced to take on debilitating debt and workers who teach, research, grade and mentor are paid far less than a living wage. And tens of thousands of higher education workers are international scholars who face precarity and frequent discrimination based on their immigration status and nationality.

As salaries of top executives grow exponentially, universities have increasingly devalued the frontline workers who keep the campuses running and carry out their core teaching and research missions. Higher education workers have formed unions and are organizing and bargaining to win fair pay, job security, stable benefits, meaningful protections against persistent harassment and discrimination, and better protections for international workers. We have developed a strong political voice on critical issues like tax fairness, federal funding for scientific research, gender equity and more.

Workers have been through some extremely tough fights due to anti-union employers; many campus organizing drives span years before the ratification of a first contract. There are currently dozens of separate campaigns unfolding on campuses across the country, and we are committed to supporting those workers until their rights are secured.