Higher Education

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.

Title VI Complaint Filed Against George Washington University

March 20, 2023 Jessica Buxbaum, Mintpress News. Resist! George Washington University, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Racism

Last month, a Palestinian rights group filed a federal complaint against George Washington University (GW), alleging the institution allows discrimination against Palestinians to persist unabated on campus. Palestine Legal filed a federal complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, demanding it investigates what the organization describes as a “years-long, hostile environment of anti-Palestinian racism.” The legal rights group is representing three students who say they have experienced anti-Palestinian discrimination from fellow classmates, professors, administrators, and GW Hillel, a Jewish campus organization.

Temple’s Graduate Worker Strike Ends With Important Victories

March 19, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Resist! Higher Education, Labor Union, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Strikes, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - It’s official. The Temple University Graduate student Association (TUGSA) has voted; and by a margin of 344-8, the six-week-long strike of grad workers in Philadelphia is over. It ended in important victories. As a teacher looking in from the outside — I’m an adjunct in the faculty union here at Temple — it seems to me one of the most important wins is: TUGSA defeated a brutal anti-union campaign. Early on in the strike, Temple’s administrators stripped grad workers of healthcare and tuition remission. They returned healthcare to the workers before the strike even ended, a sign that the bosses saw they were losing.

From Georgetown To Langley

March 15, 2023 Alan MacLeod, Mintpress News. Educate! CIA, Georgetown University, Higher Education

If you have ever wondered, “where do America’s spies come from?” the answer is quite possibly the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. It is only a modestly-seized institution, yet the school provides the backbone for the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, State Department, and other organs of the national security state. From overthrowing foreign governments and conducting worldwide psychological operations to overseeing drug and gun smuggling and a global torture network, the CIA is perhaps the world’s most controversial and dangerous organization.

Dispatches From The Pickets: Temple Grad Worker Strike Escalates

March 3, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Resist! Higher Education, Philadelphia, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights

The contrast is sharp: dull gray clouds over bleak college buildings versus the bright intensity across TUGSA picketers’ faces. It’s week five of the grad worker strike. Someone says to me: “We’re doing another ‘hard picket’ today. We did it yesterday and stopped packages getting delivered.” I don’t know what that means but I’m not going to miss it. Some background. The UPS Teamsters here in Philly are refusing to cross the pickets and they’re not delivering packages. My own union could learn from this. The Teamsters’ supervisors are scabbing. They’re picking up and delivering packages at the Student Center.

Largest First-Contract Wins In 25 Years At Two New Mexico Universities

February 4, 2023 Gauge Burnett, United Electrical. Resist! Higher Education, New Mexico, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New Mexico - Following ratification of first contracts by members of UE Local 1466-United Graduate Workers at the University of New Mexico and UE Local 1498-Graduate Workers United at New Mexico State University, thousands of graduate workers in the state are now covered by collective bargaining agreements. Both locals joined UE in historic “card check” drives at the beginning of the pandemic and have overwhelmingly ratified first contracts in mid-December, earning 7.12 percent and 6.8 percent raises, respectively, for their members. Covering more than 2,500 workers, these are the largest first contracts settled by UE in the last 25 years. The union organizing discussed for decades by UNM graduate workers finally took shape in the spring semester of 2020. A group of graduate workers reached out to UE and hit the ground running as the pandemic exacerbated the unfair treatment and poor working conditions that existed at UNM.

Chicago Grads Want To Turn City Into A ‘Powerhouse Of Organizing’

February 1, 2023 Sara Van Horn, In These Times. Organize! Chicago, Higher Education, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Chicago's thousands of graduate workers — increasingly responsible for teaching and research work once performed by faculty — have long been overworked, underpaid, and non-union. This month, that might finally be starting to change. On January 12, nearly 3,000 graduate workers at Northwestern University announced a landslide victory in their union election, winning 93.5% of the vote. This Tuesday, some 3,000 graduate workers at the nearby University of Chicago (UChicago) will also cast ballots, and while UChicago’s election results won’t be tallied until March due to mail-in voting, a majority of workers pledged to vote “yes.” The two universities are the largest employers of graduate workers in Chicago, and union victories at both would reflect a dramatic increase in the area’s academic union density.

Students Protest Fossil Fuel Involvement In Campus Career Center

January 15, 2023 Last Real Indians. Resist! Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Jobs, Washington

Washington - UW students are protesting on campus to demand that the UW Career and Internship Center amend their employer user policy to prohibit companies in the Fossil Fuel industry from recruiting on campus or using the center’s services in any capacity to engage with students. The requested change would deny members of the Fossil Fuel industry a space to recruit students through university networking platforms and career fair events, and also leverage the UW’s agenda-setting power by encouraging similar institutions to follow suit. After several meetings and an attempt to work with the executive director of the UW Career and Internship Center, Briana Randall, student members of the group Institution Climate Action (ICA) were met with strong refusal and told there was “absolutely no way” the career center would adopt such a policy.

The Higher Education Labor Movement Runs Full Speed Ahead Into 2023

January 14, 2023 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. Resist! Higher Education, Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

At the end of 2022, workers in higher education had their eyes turned toward the weeks-long strikes at the University of California (UC) and The New School. These strikes were among the largest and longest that higher education in the U.S. has ever seen. In California, the striking unions represented about 48,000 workers. While the total number of striking faculty at The New School in New York was much smaller, they represented 87 percent of all teaching faculty at the university, showing the power of what a near-total shutdown of classes can do. These strikes are part of a much bigger trend in the higher education labor movement, which has grown significantly in the last decade, with 144 new private sector faculty and/or graduate student bargaining units forming just between 2013 and 2019, and many more filing for elections in the public sector and in the years since then.

Yale Graduate And Professional Student Workers Vote To Unionize

January 11, 2023 Megan Vaz, Yale Daily News. Organize! Higher Education, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs, Yale University

In a landslide victory, Yale’s graduate and professional student workers have voted to unionize, marking a historic first after decades of organizing on campus. According to the National Labor Relations Board’s final tally, 1,860 of 2,039 voters favored forming a collective bargaining unit under Local 33 – UNITE HERE, the graduate student union that has fought for University recognition since 1990. Daily Union Elections, which tracks NLRB records, listed Local 33’s election filing as the second largest in the nation in 2022, with 4,000 graduate and professional workers eligible for union representation. Including challenged ballots that went uncounted due to wide vote margin, about two-thirds of those eligible to vote showed up to the polls or mailed in ballots.

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