US colleges are contending with greater union activism

Significance

As well as experiencing political attacks on culture and speech issues, and growing public scepticism about rising tuition fees, managers at US universities must now contend with revitalised union action by faculty members and graduate students employed as teaching assistants.

Impacts

• Successful campus labour campaigns are making universities central to the new interest in unionisation among younger US adults.
• Concerns about examples of arbitrary and unfair dismissals during and after the COVID-19 pandemic are encouraging faculty to organisation.
• Lessons from the experience of organising at universities are already reshaping the internal politics of major US labour unions.