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Eleven union organizations representing hundreds of thousands of faculty and staff at colleges and universities raised their voices Sept. 16 in a historic alliance of purpose, amplifying a vision of higher education for the public good and calling on the Harris-Walz ticket to join them in creating the policy changes necessary to attain it.
In a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, the coalition, including the AFT, pointed out the crucial connection between higher education and democracy and called for full funding, affordability and access, sustainable working conditions for higher education employees, and a secretary of education with a “clear record” of supporting higher education as a public good.
“As unions representing U.S. higher education workers, we look forward to working with you and our elected partners to rebuild this country’s higher education system as a public good that works for students, workers, and communities,” the letter reads, before listing specific actions to reach that goal.
Recounting the problem, offering real solutions
“Higher education is under attack,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, at a press conference at the Community College of Philadelphia on Sept. 16. Recounting all the ways colleges and universities have struggled in recent years, he pointed to 50 years of defunding, skyrocketing tuition, trillions in student debt and institutional debt, a lack of job security for workers, and “mission drift,” when administrators forget their core purpose: “teaching the next generation; creating critical, cutting-edge research; and serving our communities.”
Wolfson and his colleagues have an alternative vision of public colleges and universities “that are fully funded, and where everyone has access, no one will leave our campuses with a mountain of debt, and all of our workers are going to have real job security and an end to ‘adjunctification,’” a reference to how the majority of faculty are adjuncts—lower-paid professors with short-term contracts and little job security.
“If colleges are supposed to be about how we create innovation and research and [to be] an engine of the economy, and their teachers are running around cobbling jobs together trying to avoid pauperization, how are we actually being the engine of the economy, how are we being the anchor of democracy?” asked AFT President Randi Weingarten. Higher education’s over-reliance on adjuncts “needs to end. This coalition is fighting against it.”
Weingarten talked about the AFT’s particular commitment to academic freedom, accessibility and affordability, adding that she is “glad that the Harris-Walz campaign … believes in this coalition’s principals” and understands that its “rock solid, common good” principals will “really achieve the promise of America.”
Drilling down to specifics
The coalition has specific asks of elected or campaigning officials. The “key issues” listed below are taken directly from the letter to Harris, with paraphrased descriptions:
- Full federal funding of public higher education
Funding incentives for full-time, secure, in-sourced employment and prevention of layoffs; an increase in federal research funding; support for minority-serving institutions; and a commitment to open-enrollment institutions.
- Expand access to higher education
End student debt and enact comprehensive immigration reform to remove barriers for undocumented and international students and workers.
- Sustainable working conditions for higher education employees
Pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act to protect the right to organize unions, and recognize the free expression of ideas; and ensure equitable salaries, benefits, and job protections for low-wage, part-time, unbenefited, subcontracted and temporary workers.
- Select a Secretary of Education who demonstrates a clear record of supporting higher education as a truly public good.
Unions and organizations participating in the action were the AAUP; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the AFT; the Communications Workers of America; the United Auto Workers; the Office and Professional Employees International Union; Higher Ed Labor Unite; the National Education Association; the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America; UNITE Here; and the Service Employees International Union. As HELU’s statement noted, it represents community colleges, technical schools, and state colleges and research universities, including historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, Native American-serving nontribal institutions and minority-serving institutions.
[Virginia Myers]