Transforming Higher Education

Movement Milestones and Victories

We’re working to improve learning and teaching conditions and access to higher education, while standing up to end the trend toward a low-road, corporate-business model for education. More than 50,000 faculty and graduate workers are already united through SEIU Faculty Forward. Every day more educators, students and community members across the country are joining our fight to transform higher education. Here’s a look at what we’ve accomplished together so far.

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Graduate worker movement gains momentum: Workers at Tufts, Emory, Brandeis, Washington universities continue to win job improvements

Just weeks after Brandeis University teaching and research assistants won up to 56 percent wage increases in the first graduate worker contract in the country since the National Labor Relations Board acknowledged graduate workers’ right to form a union and Emory University graduate workers won a $15 an hour minimum wage, Tufts University graduate workers in the School of Arts & Sciences won their first tentative union contract including 12-19 percent raises over the next four years, critical improvements to health and safety protections, and a landmark contractual victory for private sector graduate workers: 12 weeks of parental leave, an unprecedented win among graduate worker and faculty contracts.

On the same day, MSNBC featured Brandon Wilson, a member of the Washington University Graduate Workers Union/Graduate Workers United, who detailed the $15 for All Campus Workers campaign and what issues really matter to students and workers on campus.