Higher Education

Striking Workers At U. Michigan Are Building Powerful Solidarity

April 30, 2023 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Organize! Higher Education, Labor Movement, Solidarity, Strikes

The morning of April 28, I was stumbling around making coffee, checking the strike news on Twitter. It’s been about a month now since my graduate student instructor colleagues voted overwhelmingly to strike, facing down the legal and financial powerhouses at the University of Michigan. I only had to scroll for a second, then I just sorta had to sit down. There was a picture of about 20-30 people in a beer garden on a gray springy afternoon, fists raised and smiling. The message was from grad students, lecturers, and faculty from UC Santa-Cruz; they had held a fundraiser and were donating $600 to the University of Michigan grad student strike fund.

State Bills Would Eliminate Long-Term Job Security In Higher Education

April 29, 2023 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. Educate! Academic Freedom, Higher Education, North Carolina, Texas, Worker Rights

Last Tuesday, Republican legislators in the North Carolina state house of representatives proposed H.B. 715, the so-called “Higher Ed Modernization and Affordability Act.” Its actual purpose is to destabilize academic jobs and exert political surveillance over North Carolina’s sixteen public universities and 58 public community colleges. Last Thursday, the Texas state senate passed a similar bill, S.B. 18. The North Carolina bill has several provisions, but the prospective elimination of tenure is getting the most attention. Under this provision, the tenure system would be eliminated for all new hires from July 2024 onward, and all future faculty would be employed at-will or on fixed-term contracts between one and four years long.

Fordham Graduate Students Walk Out To Demand A Better Contract

April 27, 2023 Jonathan Custodio, Portside. Resist! Fordham University, Higher Education, New York City (NYC), Walkout, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 300 graduate student workers at Fordham University’s Arts and Sciences school began a three-day walkout this Monday, resulting in hundreds of canceled classes amid growing frustration with the state of their union contract negotiations with the university. On Tuesday morning, about two dozen picketers marched in front of Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus in The Bronx, while others demonstrated at Lincoln Center Campus in Manhattan. Drivers sped along East Fordham Road toward Webster Avenue and honked their horns in support as the strikers bellowed, “Who’s got the power? We got the power! What kind of power? Union power.”

University Of Michigan Graduate Student Strike Continues

April 25, 2023 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Resist! Higher Education, Michigan, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Graduate student workers at the University of Michigan have been winning a series of small skirmishes in their strike against the huge billionaire institution. But the university administration has shown the darker side of their corporate-style approach to negotiating with their own students, turning increasingly to violence in the face of community support for strikers. The strike, which began on March 29, came after several months of negotiations, and were often stalled by administration in moves to limit the format of bargaining meetings. When the roughly 2,400 graduate student workers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the strike, the administration immediately filed for an injunction against the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) chapter representing grad workers.

Taking Back Our Universities From Corporate Apparatchiks

April 16, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Chris Hedges, Higher Education, Rutgers, Strike, Worker Rights

New Brunswick, N.J. — Here are some of the senior administrators I did not see joining us on the picket lines set up by striking teachers and staff at Rutgers University. Brian Strom, the chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, whose salary is $925,932 a year. Steven Libutti, the vice chancellor for Cancer Programs for Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, who makes $929,411 a year. Patrick Hobbs, the director of athletics, who receives $999,688 a year. The president of the university, Jonathan Holloway, who is paid $1.2 million a year. Stephen Pikiell, the university’s head basketball coach, who has received a 445 percent pay raise since 2020 and currently gets $3 million a year. Gregory Schiano, the university’s head football coach, who pulls in $4 million a year.

The UC Strike Showed There’s Power In A Union

April 12, 2023 Hazel Katz, The Real News Network. Strategize! Higher Education, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On Dec. 23, 2022, members of the Academic Student Employees (UAW 2865) and Student Researchers United, both organized under the United Auto Workers, voted 11,386 to 7,097 (ASE) and 10,057 to 4,640 (SRU) to ratify tentative agreements reached with the University of California. The ratification vote ended the largest higher education academic worker strike in US history, where 48,000 workers walked off the job for six weeks. I work within the Academic Student Employee (ASE) unit, instructing twice weekly sections of 30 undergraduates each. My teaching assistant contract is 20 hours of paid work per week, but as a graduate student I do many more hours of weekly unpaid research work that benefits the university.

Rutgers Faculty Declares Strike In Historic Showdown

April 10, 2023 Tina Kelley, NJ.com. Resist! Higher Education, Rutgers, Strikes, Unions

Leaders of three Rutgers University faculty unions declared a strike Sunday, saying negotiations have stalled over new contracts for the 9,000 Rutgers University professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers they represent at the state’s largest university. The strike is one of the largest faculty walkouts in U.S. higher education history and is expected to disrupt classes for more than 67,000 students on Rutgers’ New Brunswick-Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses. “Our boards voted unanimously that we will be going on strike tomorrow,” Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan told her members in an 8:30 p.m. online meeting attended by thousands of professors and other faculty members.

University Of Michigan Graduate Students Strike For A Living Wage

April 8, 2023 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Resist! Graduate School, Higher Education, Michigan, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

For the second time in three years, University of Michigan graduate students are on strike, fighting for a starting wage of $38,000 per year to meet the soaring costs of living in Ann Arbor. These demands come as the University’s endowment continues to balloon, surpassing $17 billion as of last year. Graduate students are also asking for gender-affirming healthcare options, better workplace protections against sexual harassment, and an approach to campus safety that doesn’t depend solely on a militarized police force. After raising similar issues three years ago, the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) ended the strike when the U of M administration threatened legal action that could disband the union, lead to job losses, and subject leadership to arrest.

Measuring The Value Of Student Housing

April 6, 2023 P. M. Campbell, Left Voice. Resist! CUNY, Higher Education, Housing, New York (NY), Student Activism

CUNY Hunter College’s Brookdale Residence Hall is home to over 600 Hunter College students, where residents have a unique opportunity to foster community through social, educational, and cultural programs. It is organized by Resident Assistants, and a quick commute from New York City’s cultural hotspots and classes. Brookdale is unique in its affordability among CUNY housing, costing students less than $10,000 per academic year, but the dorm is currently in danger. On October 13, 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayer Eric Adams publicized the creation of an “Education Hub” at Brookdale Campus without mentioning that creating this Hub would require the ultimate destruction of the dorms located there.

University Of Michigan Seeks Court Injunction To Stop Grad Student Strike

April 4, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Resist! Higher Education, Strikes, University Of Michigan, Worker Rights and Jobs

Graduate student-workers at the University of Michigan are on strike for the second time in three years, officially hitting the picket line this week. Speaking to The Michigan Daily, Amir Fleischmann, chair of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) Contracts Committee, said, “Grad workers are very frustrated. They’re struggling to pay rent. They’re struggling to afford childcare. They lack access to gender-affirming care. And I think we’re saying enough is enough. The University needs to give us a fair contract now.” On top of that, the University of Michigan administration is once again seeking to weaponize the courts to end the strike, filing an Unfair Labor Practice Charge against the union, claiming that the strike violates the university’s existing contract with the union.

Duke University’s Ploy To Ban Graduate Student Unions

April 3, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Organize! Duke University, Higher Education, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

At colleges and universities across the country, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers’ right to organize and have a say over how the institutions they keep afloat with their labor are run. From graduate student-worker unionization efforts and strikes at Temple University, the University of California, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern University, Northeastern University, the University of Chicago, and Indiana University, to faculty strikes (and near-strikes) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, The New School, Howard University, etc., to workers across the higher ed sector striking in the UK, the academic labor movement is one of the most explosive sites of labor struggle right now.

Strike At The New School Spawned An Ongoing Radical Coalition

March 25, 2023 Miles Hamberg, Truthout. Create! Coopreative, Higher Education, The New School, Worker Rights and Jobs

Though the 25-day labor strike of part-time faculty at The New School, a private university in New York City, ended three months ago, the university administration’s hardball approach has not been forgotten. A student-led coalition that emerged in solidarity with the striking adjunct faculty is still going strong. And with the school’s graduate students set to begin their own contract negotiations with the university later this year, the coalition could potentially add pressure to the university administration to bargain in a different manner than it did with the part-time faculty union. The coalition is certainly poised to rally support during a strike if no agreement is reached before the graduate students’ contract expires.

What’s Fueling The Graduate Worker Union Upsurge?

March 23, 2023 Dave Kamper, Labor Notes. Organize! Higher Education, Minnesota, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Twin Cities saw one of its biggest-ever snowstorms the week of Presidents Day. But for labor activists the snow was overshadowed by the launch of the University of Minnesota Graduate Labor Union. In its first 24 hours, the new union—affiliated with the United Electrical Workers (UE)—gathered more than 1,700 authorization cards representing nearly half the entire bargaining unit. Eight days in, they had a strong majority. And this week they filed for election with 65 percent support. Such a first day bodes well for the success of the campaign, despite five—count ’em, five—previous election losses in graduate union drives at the University of Minnesota.

Make One Big Higher Education Union

March 23, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Strategize! Higher Education, Unions, Unity, Worker Rights and Jobs

Higher ed is unionizing. Like crazy! Last year, every single one of the five largest filings for NLRB union elections in America — each representing more than 3,000 members — were for graduate workers at various universities. University of California workers pulled off the biggest strike of 2022. New units of more than 1,000 people, rare in most of the union world, have become commonplace in academia. This wave shows no sign of slowing. Just this month, thousands more grad workers at the University of Minnesota and Duke filed for elections. Since the beginning of 2022, more than 45,000 graduate and undergrad workers have made moves to unionize, according to Daily Union Elections, a site that catalogs union filings.

Making Campuses Platforms For Labor Renewal

March 21, 2023 Joseph A. McCartin, CounterPunch.org. Organize! Higher Education, History, Labor Movement, Labor Spring, Worker Rights and Jobs

Everywhere you look this spring, you’ll find evidence that campuses are becoming sites of labor organizing and struggle. In recent months, faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago staged recently a successful week-long strike, adjunct faculty at the New School won a three-week strike, 50,000 graduate assistants staged a six-week strike across the entire University of California system, staff at American University struck, and undergraduate workers at a growing number of campuses have begun organizing unions and, in some places, even preparing to strike. And this is just a small sampling of what has been afoot.

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