Tag: strike

  • Penn Graduate Students (GET-UP) Authorize Strike as Contract Talks Falter

    Penn Graduate Students (GET-UP) Authorize Strike as Contract Talks Falter

    Graduate student workers at Penn have overwhelmingly authorized a strike — a decisive move in their fight for fair pay, stronger benefits, and comprehensive protections. The vote reflects not only deep frustration with stalled negotiations but also the growing momentum of graduate-worker organizing nationwide.

    A year of bargaining — and growing frustration

    Since winning union recognition in May 2024, GET‑UP has spent over a year negotiating with Penn administrators on their first collective-bargaining agreement. Despite 35 bargaining sessions and tentative agreements on several non-economic issues, key demands — especially around compensation, benefits, and protections for international students — remain unmet.

    Many observers see the strike authorization as long overdue. “After repeated delays and insulting offers, this was the only way to signal our seriousness,” said a member of the bargaining committee. Support for the strike among graduate workers is overwhelmingly strong, reflecting a shared determination to secure livable wages and protections commensurate with the vital labor they provide.

    Strike authorization: a powerful tool

    From Nov. 18–20, GET‑UP conducted a secret-ballot vote open to roughly 3,400 eligible graduate employees. About two-thirds voted, and 92% of votes cast authorized a strike, giving the union discretion to halt academic work at a moment’s notice.

    Striking graduate workers, many of whom serve as teaching or research assistants, would withhold all academic labor — including teaching, grading, and research — until a contract with acceptable terms is reached. Penn has drafted “continuity plans” for instruction in the event of a strike, which union organizers have criticized as strikebreaking.

    Demands: beyond a stipend increase

    GET‑UP’s contract demands include:

    • A living wage for graduate workers

    • Expanded benefits: health, vision, dental, dependent coverage

    • Childcare support and retirement contributions

    • Protections for international and immigrant students

    • Strong anti-discrimination, harassment, and inclusive-pronoun / gender-neutral restroom protections

    While Penn has agreed to some non-economic protections, many critical provisions remain unresolved. The stakes are high: graduate workers form the backbone of research and teaching at the university, yet many struggle to survive on modest stipends.

    Context: a national wave of UAW wins

    Penn’s graduate workers are part of a broader wave of successful organizing by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and allied graduate unions. Recent years have seen UAW-affiliated graduate-worker locals achieve significant victories at institutions including Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, and across the University of California (UC) system.

    At UC, a massive systemwide strike in 2022–2023 involving tens of thousands of Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs) and Academic Student Employees (ASEs) secured three-year contracts with major gains:

    • Wage increases of 55–80% over prior levels, establishing a livable baseline salary.

    • Expanded health and dependent coverage, childcare subsidies, paid family leave, and fee remission.

    • Stronger protections against harassment, improved disability accommodations, and support for international student workers.

    • Consolidation of bargaining units across ASEs and GSRs, strengthening long-term collective power.

    These gains demonstrate that even large, resource-rich institutions can be compelled to recognize graduate labor as essential, and to provide fair compensation and protections. They also show that coordinated, determined action — including strike authorization — can yield significant, lasting change.

    What’s next

    With strike authorization in hand, GET‑UP holds a powerful bargaining tool. While a strike remains a last resort, the overwhelming support among members signals that the union is prepared to act decisively to secure a fair contract. The UC precedent, along with wins at other UAW graduate-worker locals, suggests that Penn could follow the same path, translating student-worker momentum into meaningful, tangible improvements.

    The outcome could have major implications not just for Penn, but for graduate-worker organizing across the country — reinforcing that organized graduate labor is increasingly a central force in higher education.

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  • The Supreme Court should strike down Colorado’s ban on ‘conversion therapy.’ Here’s why.

    The Supreme Court should strike down Colorado’s ban on ‘conversion therapy.’ Here’s why.

    Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar, a First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” — that is, counseling intended to change their gender identity or attraction to someone of the same sex. The case has attracted widespread attention because conversion therapy is deeply controversial. But the Court’s decision is poised to have significant consequences far beyond the practice — so to protect free expression, the Court should find the law unconstitutional.  

    That’s because Chiles hinges on one of the central questions in First Amendment jurisprudence: When do words become functionally indistinguishable from conduct? 

    The First Amendment broadly protects speech, including expressive actions like holding a sign or marching in a protest. But conduct — assault, for example, or drunk driving — is fair game for the government to regulate and/or criminalize. When speech is inextricably linked to certain conduct, it may lose First Amendment protection. 

    The classic example is incitement — speech intended to and likely to result in imminent lawless action. Because the words are so closely tied to the immediate crime that’s all but certain to result, incitement isn’t protected by the First Amendment. That’s a high bar to meet, because we Americans value freedom of speech and are rightly wary of government control. 

    In defense of fiery words

    In the wake of political violence, calls to criminalize rhetoric are growing louder. But Brandenburg v. Ohio set the bar — and it’s a high one.


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    But deciding exactly where to draw the line between speech and conduct can be sharply contested — as in Kaley Chiles’ case. 

    Conversion therapy has a long, painful history. For many years, being anything other than “straight” was socially taboo and widely criminalized; until 1974, homosexuality was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Attempts to “cure” people of their sexuality or gender identity were widespread and took a variety of forms, including the use of electric shocks or chemicals. Now, groups like the American Psychiatric Association, the American Counseling Association, and the American Medical Association oppose conversion therapy, linking it to negative mental health outcomes and even suicide. And today Colorado is one of 27 states that ban counselors from engaging in conversion therapy with minors. 

    But let’s say some conversion therapy doesn’t include shock treatments, medicine, or any physical conduct. Suppose instead it consists solely of a counselor and a client talking to each other. It would still be prohibited by Colorado’s law, which bans counselors from any practice that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” And the prohibition includes situations where individuals seek out such advice.

    That’s why Kaley Chiles, a counselor in Colorado, filed a First Amendment challenge to the law in September 2022. Chiles alleged the law prevented her from providing “licensed, ethical, and professional counseling that honors her clients’ autonomy and right to self-determination,” explaining that “speech is the only tool” she uses in her counseling. Consequently, she argued, banning her speech-only counseling violates the First Amendment.

    A federal district court disagreed. Rejecting Chiles’ challenge, the district court held the ban was a “public health law” that “regulates professional conduct rather than speech.” In other words, Chiles’ conversation was more than just talk, but rather treatment, and thus the law’s impact on Chiles’ ability to communicate with clients was “incidental to the professional conduct it regulates.” 

    Talk therapy is speech. And when the government prohibits speech because it doesn’t like the views being expressed, it violates the First Amendment.

    Chiles appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, arguing the district court got it wrong by treating her counseling as “medical treatment” instead of “a client-directed conversation consisting entirely of speech.” But the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. It concluded that Colorado’s law “does not regulate expression,” but rather “the provision of a therapeutic modality — carried out through use of verbal language — by a licensed practitioner authorized by Colorado to care for patients.” 

    Can a College that Protects Free Speech be ‘Gay-Friendly’?

    There’s no need to sacrifice free speech for a campus to be accepting of LGBT students.


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    So Chiles sought review by the Supreme Court of the United States. She asked the Court to resolve the split between the circuit courts of appeal — with the Ninth and now Tenth Circuits treating conversion therapy bans as permissible regulations of professional speech, and the Eleventh Circuit on the other side. (A 2014 Third Circuit case involving New Jersey’s ban on conversion therapy rejected the “counter-intuitive conclusion” that a counselor’s talk therapy with clients constitutes “conduct.”) 

    At base, Chiles asked the Court to separate regulable conduct from protected speech. The Court agreed to hear her case — and at oral argument last week, the justices focused on exactly that question.

    In response to a question from Justice Jackson, for example, exploring what differentiates Chiles from “a medical professional who has exactly the same goals, exactly the same interests, and would just be prescribing medication for that rather than her talking with the client,” James Campbell, Chiles’ counsel, replied: “Because this involves a conversation,” not conduct. If the “treatment” at issue “consists only of speech, then it doesn’t trigger the speech-incidental-to-conduct doctrine.” 

    Campbell emphasized that Chiles’ therapy is different from medical practices involving conduct, characterizing her interactions with clients as “an ongoing, active dialogue where she’s helping them to explore their goals, and that absolutely has to be protected by the First Amendment.” That’s an important point. And it’s worth emphasizing that Chiles’ clients seek out her help; there’s no deception involved. As Chiles put it in her complaint, she “sits down with her clients and talks to them about their goals, objectives, religious or spiritual beliefs, values, desires, and identity to help them (1) explore and understand their feelings and (2) formulate methods of counseling that will most benefit them.”

    When Justice Kagan and Chief Justice Roberts pressed Campbell on the same point, he readily granted that if Chiles’ practice involved more than talk therapy — “administering drugs, performing procedures, conducting examinations” — the analysis would be different. If Chiles’ speech was “describing how to take the medication,” for example, it would properly be considered incidental to the conduct of prescribing medication. 

    But Colorado’s law regulates Chiles’ speech — and as some justices noted, it does so on the basis of viewpoint. Treating speech differently on the basis of viewpoint is anathema to the First Amendment, which bars the government from placing a thumb on the scale in favor of certain beliefs while punishing others. 

    In an exchange with Shannon Stevenson, Colorado’s solicitor general, Justice Alito argued the law applies unequally, sketching out a hypothetical to illustrate his point: 

    So, in the first situation, an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but he feels uneasy and guilty with those feelings, he wants to end or lessen them, and he asks for the therapist’s help in doing so. 

    The other situation is a similar adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist, says he’s attracted to other males, feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants the therapist’s help so he will feel comfortable as a gay young man. 

    It seems to me . . . your statute dictates opposite results in those two situations based on the view — based on the viewpoint expressed. One viewpoint is the viewpoint that a minor should be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction if that’s what he — or he or she wants. And the other is the viewpoint that the minor should not be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction even if that is what he or she wants.

    “Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” concluded the justice. 

    Justice Kagan echoed Justice Alito’s concern. “If a doctor says, I know you identify as gay and I’m going to help you accept that, and another doctor says, I know you identify as gay and I’m going to help you to change that, and one of those is permissible and the other is not,” she suggested, “that seems like viewpoint discrimination in the way we would normally understand viewpoint discrimination.” 

    Relatedly, Justice Barrett and Justice Gorsuch pressed Stevenson on whether other states could pass a “mirror image” law that, as Justice Gorsuch put it, “prohibits any attempt to affirm changes of gender identity or sexual orientation.” In response to questioning from Justice Gorsuch, Stevenson conceded that under Colorado’s position, a state in the 1970s would not have violated the First Amendment by passing a law prohibiting a “regulated licensed professional from affirming homosexuality.” And Justice Barrett asked whether a state could simply “pick a side” after Stevenson argued Colorado’s law should receive less judicial scrutiny than a hypothetical mirror image law would receive. “Counsel, it’s pretty important that I think about how this would apply to cases down the road,” said Justice Barrett. 

    No gay rights without free expression

    FIRE’s latest rankings show alarming support for censorship among LGBT students. But as Kirchick explains, there would be no LGBT rights without free speech.


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    Justice Barrett’s focus on the possible ramifications of the Court’s ruling is apt, because Chiles’ case raises an even bigger question than whether bans on conversion therapy are constitutional. It asks the Court to draw a clearer line delineating conduct and speech in the professional context. That’s important, because both Colorado’s law and the lower courts’ rulings blur that line in ways that are ripe for abuse. 

    To be sure, attempts to recast protected speech as punishable conduct are evergreen, and this is not unfamiliar territory for the Supreme Court. Back in 2018, the Court warned that “regulating the content of professionals’ speech ‘pose[s] the inherent risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information.’” And some lower courts have rightly rejected exactly government attempts to do just that. 

    In 2002, for example, the Ninth Circuit blocked enforcement of a federal government policy threatening doctors who discussed medical marijuana with their patients with the loss of the ability to prescribe drugs. As the Ninth Circuit noted, doctors “must be able to speak frankly and openly to patients,” and restrictions on their ability to do so “strike at core First Amendment interests of doctors and patients.” 

    And just two years ago, a federal district court ruled a California law that defined “unprofessional conduct” for doctors to include efforts to “disseminate misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19” to be likely unconstitutional. The court found the law’s terms were impermissibly vague — noting, for example, that the state was unable to demonstrate that “‘scientific consensus’ has any established technical meaning.”  

    But if the Supreme Court upholds Colorado’s law, these rulings could be in doubt. A win for Colorado would embolden government actors to impose broad viewpoint-based restrictions on a wide variety of professional speech disguised as regulations on “conduct.”

    Your right to talk freely with your counselor or your doctor shouldn’t depend on what state you’re in.

    That possibility should worry everyone, no matter your views on conversion therapy. As several justices pointed out during oral argument, this government power could just as easily be wielded in ways that proponents of conversion therapy bans would find objectionable. As Reason senior editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown noted, a ruling upholding Colorado’s law would “pave the way for talk therapy restrictions based on conservative views of sexuality and gender, too.” 

    She’s right. It’s too easy to imagine a red-and-blue patchwork of state bans barring counselors from either conversion therapy, on one side, or gender affirmation, on the other. Same for conversations about abortion — or vaccines, or marijuana, or assisted suicide, or any number of culture war flashpoints. But your right to talk freely with your counselor or your doctor shouldn’t depend on what state you’re in. The government shouldn’t be able to rule some subjects out of bounds, impeding professionals’ ability to meet a client’s individual needs. 

    It’s important to remember that new, viewpoint-based laws aren’t necessary for imposing consequences against professionals who harm their clients. That’s what licensure, standards of care, and malpractice suits are for. If a professional in Colorado or California engages in professional misconduct, they may properly be punished.

    But talk therapy is speech. And when the government prohibits speech because it doesn’t like the views being expressed, it violates the First Amendment. The Court should strike down Colorado’s law.

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  • British Council undeterred after Russian strike “practically obliterated” Kyiv HQ

    British Council undeterred after Russian strike “practically obliterated” Kyiv HQ

    Speaking on August 29, two days after an attack on the Ukrainian capital in which at least 16 people were killed, the British Council’s director for the country, Colm McGivern, laid bare the impact on the organisation’s offices in Kyiv.

    Standing outside the ravaged offices, which were severely damaged after Russian forces fired two missiles at it, McGivern said that the building had been “absolutely devastated – it’s been practically obliterated”.

    While extending condolences to the families of those who died during the “horrific attack”, McGivern was firm in his resolve that the British Council’s work in Ukraine would continue even as the war with Russia wages on.

    “I’d like to tell everyone that the British Council’s resolve is still there,” he said. “We will be here in Ukraine, we’ve been here 30 years. We’ll continue our work.”

    He pointed out that the organisation did not stop its work in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022, and that this will not change. “To the contrary, we’re more determined than ever to make sure that cultural and educational links between the UK and Ukraine can thrive, not just survive,” he said.

    He pledged that an upcoming British Council event in Lviv, located in the west of Ukraine, would take place this week as planned, as well as promising young Ukrainians that face-to-face learning would also resume in the coming days.”We will keep those promises. We will start those classes,” he stressed.

    McGivern extended best wishes to a British Council colleague who had been injured on the evening of the attack, who he said was recovering in hospital. And he said his team had been overwhelmed by the support they had received from the international education community, as well as the Ukrainian first responders and emergency services who helped in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

    There has been an outpouring of support for British Council colleagues in Ukraine by the international education community.

    Our work will not stop now because of this horrific attack. To the contrary, we’re more determined than ever
    Colm McGivern, British Council

    Gwen van der Helden, a professor of education reconstruction during/post war, crisis and conflict at the University of Warwick and a visiting professor at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, expressed her shock.

    “The BC is hardly of military interest, not a danger to anyone, and the people working there do nothing than trying to contribute to the future of fellow citizens. It is utter codswallop to think that the BC is in any way a reasonable target. But then, so few of the targets that have been hit in this war have been,” she wrote on LinkedIn.

    “Furious is how we should all feel at this point. Our colleagues in Kyiv (and yes I do think we should regard BC colleagues as exactly that), deserve better.
    Sending courage, strength and a large portion of defiance to our British Council colleagues.”

    The British Council’s mission in Ukraine offers English language programs and other training or educational programs. In June, Russia made accusations that it was being used as a cover for British intelligence operations in Kyiv.

    After the attack, British Council chief executive Scott McDonald confirmed that bombing in the city had damaged its offices.

    “Our guard was injured and is shaken but stable. At the insistence of my amazing colleagues, we will continue operations in Ukraine today wherever possible,” he said.

    Meanwhile, European leaders have condemned the strike, which saw 629 missiles and drones launched at the city.

    President of the European Council, António Costa, confirmed that the British Council’s Ukrainian office “was damaged in this deliberate Russian strike”, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hit out at Vladimir Putin – accusing him of “sabotaging peace”.

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  • Why Philadelphia Teachers are Ready to Strike – The 74

    Why Philadelphia Teachers are Ready to Strike – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of The 19th. 

    As a “pink-collar profession” — a nickname given to women-dominated occupations — teaching has historically paid less than comparable fields requiring a higher education degree, and in Philadelphia, the push to close the wage gap could lead to a strike by the end of the month.

    Salaries for Philly teachers — roughly 70 percent of whom are women — begin at $54,146. That’s far below the median earnings of Pennsylvania college graduates. Now, concern over pay has become a sticking point between the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) and the School District of Philadelphia as they negotiate a new contract, with the current collective bargaining agreement expiring August 31.

    The PFT in June voted to authorize its executive board to initiate a strike if the union and the district don’t agree on a new contract by then. With the deadline imminent and no deal in sight, schools may open on August 25 only for teachers to appear on picket lines within days. A strike could leave working parents in a lurch, scrambling for childcare — a task moms usually have to complete. Many Philly teachers, however, are also parents and demanding higher salaries to better provide for their families.

    PFT President Arthur Steinberg pointed out that even suburban teachers with less education often out-earn Philadelphia’s top-performing educators by up to $22,000.

    “We would like to close that gap as much as we can with this next contract,” he recently told the Philadelphia Tribune.

    Amid ongoing negotiations, Steinberg appeared with School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington at a welcome event for new teachers on Wednesday.

    “We are optimistic about a successful conclusion by the end-of-the-month deadline, and it’s important to us that all of our employees feel seen, valued and heard,” said Watlington, who called Steinberg a “tough negotiator.”

    To reach an agreement, Steinberg said, “There’s significant work that has to be done, but it’s doable.”

    Still, union members are prepping for a strike, making protest slogans at the new teacher orientation. A strike would be the first in Philadelphia since 1981, when teachers walked out for 50 days.

    “Our schools are not safe, they’re not healthy for anybody to work in or go to school in,” chemistry teacher Kate Sundeen told local news station ABC 6. “We have a hard time with teacher retention and a hard time attracting new talent.”

    Philadelphia teachers complained to The 19th in 2023 about working in century-old buildings that swelter in early fall heat. Before then, the PFT expressed concerns to The 19th that the district was not taking robust action to prevent exposing teachers to COVID-19.

    The PFT represents nearly 14,000 teachers, counselors, school nurses, librarians and other educators. Just under 200,000 students attend the School District of Philadelphia, which has garnered nationwide attention since the hit workplace comedy “Abbott Elementary” — set in Philly — debuted in 2021.

    In recent years, a number of large urban school districts have gone on strike. They include classified workers in Los Angeles Unified School District in March 2023, teachers in Seattle Public Schools in September 2022 and classified workers and teachers in Minneapolis Public Schools in March 2022.

    On Friday, the national bus tour of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) will arrive in West Philadelphia to support the PFT ahead of a possible strike. The event will be the last of six strike preparation events that have taken place before the teachers head back to work on Monday, a week before the first day of school.

    This story was originally published on The 19th.


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  • Strike Failed to Pressure Rochester Into Non-NLRB Election

    Strike Failed to Pressure Rochester Into Non-NLRB Election

    For a month this spring, the University of Rochester Graduate Labor Union, a group of Ph.D. student workers, staged a strike. Workers walked off the job, demanding that the university host a private unionization election so they could vote and win recognition of the union—all without having to go through the Trump-era National Labor Relations Board.

    But after workers protested during the May 16 commencement ceremony, GLU representatives told them that organizing committee members had voted unanimously to “pause” the strike. And, with fall semester classes starting Monday, the organizers say they have no plans to rekindle it.

    “We didn’t achieve what we wanted, which was them giving us a fair process for an election,” said Katie Gregory, a seventh-year environmental sciences Ph.D. worker. But, she said, “none of us consider the fight here to be over in terms of support for a union.”

    George Elkind, a fourth-year visual and cultural studies Ph.D. worker, said, “We intend to continue fighting for a fair election process.”

    The strike was both a carryover from an intense period of grad student union activity during the Biden administration—roughly 38 percent of grad student workers are unionized, according to a report from last August—and an indication of how President Trump’s return to the White House has raised concerns that the NLRB has become less favorable to unions.

    Last year, during Biden’s presidency, University of Rochester officials and GLU organizers discussed plans for a private election, which both parties were amenable to. If they had reached an agreement, the NLRB—which usually handles unionization votes at private nonprofit institutions such as Rochester—wouldn’t have been involved.

    But after Trump retook the White House in January—and fired a Democratic NLRB member and the agency’s general counsel—the university changed its tune. In February, a university lawyer told student organizers the institution no longer wanted a private election, citing multiple reasons, according to a document that Ph.D. student workers provided to Inside Higher Ed. Instead, the lawyer wrote, they could pursue an election with the Trump-era NLRB.

    Taking that route would be risky—not just for their own prospective union’s chances of winning recognition, but also for the continued rights of grad workers across the country to unionize. Some union supporters worry an NLRB dominated by Trump appointees might use a grad student unionization case such as Rochester’s to overturn the 2016 Columbia University precedent establishing that private nonprofit university grad workers can unionize through the NLRB.

    If that precedent were overturned, student workers could continue to unionize at public universities in the states that allow such action, but those at private institutions would have no other path than to seek voluntary recognition from their universities.

    So far, GLU hasn’t succeeded in pressuring the University of Rochester once again to back a private union vote that would circumvent the NLRB. Gregory and Elkind both said the outcome of the strike might have been different if more Ph.D. workers had withheld their labor.

    The union would have represented more than 1,400 students, Elkind said. About 300 withheld at least a day of work, Gregory said, but having 1,000 strike on day one would’ve sent a very different message.

    Elkind said a “more sweeping strike with bigger numbers … would have had [university leaders] at the table within days.”

    Both said the Trump administration’s attempts to remove international students from the U.S. had a “chilling effect” on strike participation. Elkind, who said about half of grad students at the university are international, called it “a horror show of a national environment.”

    They also pointed to the university’s announcement of “attestation” forms that asked workers to indicate how much they were working—allowing the university to cut off pay for strikers if it wished.

    “Clearly, a tactic to impact the strike participation,” Gregory said. The university didn’t move forward with requiring the forms; in an email, Sara Miller, a university spokesperson, said it “never implemented an attestation form and denies any allegation of ‘scare tactics.’”

    University representatives also “refused to acknowledge the union as an entity,” Gregory said. For instance, they responded to organizing committee members’ communications as if they were merely students, offering them help with issues such as registration.

    “It was a real slap in the face,” she said.

    In their May 18 email calling off the strike, GLU members noted the semester was ending, writing that “many grads only have 9-month stipends and do not have labor to withhold during the summer.”

    But Elkind and Gregory both said organizing is continuing. And the provost, in a Friday memo, announced new, universitywide minimum stipends for “full-time, full tuition remission PhD students”: $25,000 for nine-month stipends and $34,000 for yearlong stipends.

    “I think they’re trying to curb labor organizing and unrest,” Elkind said.

    Miller, the university spokesperson, wrote in an email that “the recent stipend update marks another step in implementing the University’s long-standing plans to enhance our graduate programs and was not related, in any way, to students’ prior organizing and/or protest activity.”

    In recent years, Miller said, Rochester has expanded support for full-time Ph.D. students to include “subsidized health, dental and vision insurance; childcare benefits; raising stipends, and enhanced access to mental wellbeing and counseling services.”

    And again, she said, “the students continue to have and have always had access to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).”

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  • NZ’s new study visa rules strike chord with Australian sector

    NZ’s new study visa rules strike chord with Australian sector

    The New Zealand government announced earlier this week that, from November, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) will increase permitted work hours for study visa holders, extend work rights to all tertiary students on exchange or study abroad programs. It may also introduce a short-term work visa of up to six months for graduates not eligible for a post-study work visa.

    While the relaxations are a key part of New Zealand’s push to boost international student numbers by over 40% by 2034, INZ has also clarified that students who change their education provider or lower their study level will need to apply for a new visa, rather than simply requesting a variation of conditions on their existing one.

    The mandate has struck a chord with Australia’s international education sector, where some individuals and associations have been calling for an overhaul of the study visa system, specifically on linking study visas to the institution of initial enrolment.

    Commenting on New Zealand’s recent changes, Ravi Lochan Singh, managing director, Global Reach, wrote in a LinkedIn post that instead of banning agent commissions for onshore student transfers to address attrition, Australia could “just copy” the neighbouring country’s approach. 

    “Australia is currently facing a significant issue where students use higher ranked or low-risk universities (as categorised by Home Affairs) to secure their student visas easily and then after the first semester of studies, the students get moved to private colleges offering higher education degrees,” Singh told The PIE News. 

    According to Singh, while such moves, often made by Indian or Nepali students with the help of onshore immigration agents, may be genuine, they “waste” the efforts of offshore education agents and universities that initially recruited the students.

    “Some policy makers feel that students have a right to choose the correct education provider and if they feel that what they desire as a customer can be met at private colleges, they should be allowed to move,” stated Singh. 

    “However, we also have the situation where students have demonstrated their available funds through an education loan which is issued in the name of a particular university,” he added. If the student does move institutions, the education loan is not valid as a demonstration of funds and thus the argument that the students should be asked to apply for a fresh student visa.”

    According to Singh, many international students, particularly from South Asia, who arrive in Australia on education loans often find themselves without “available” or “accessible” funds when they switch providers and are required to show new financial evidence.

    It would appear that three modern advanced economies who have championed consumer protections and who have established international study destinations believe this measure is not contrary to ‘consumer choice’
    Gareth Lewis, Western Sydney University

    Moreover, a recent report by Allianz Partners Australia revealed that over 61% of international students found daily life in the country “significantly more expensive than expected”, with more than a quarter considering withdrawing from their studies due to financial woes. 

    “While we are discussing attrition and student movements once the student is onshore, we also need to acknowledge that university fees have been increasing and students are beginning to question ROI. Thus there is an argument for more student visa grants for higher education degrees at TAFE and private providers,” said Singh. 

    “The fees of such programs is much lower to what is charged at the universities. If this happens, the students who are more price sensitive will join the TAFE and private providers right in the beginning and universities will have only those students who can afford the degree and likely to complete them at the university itself.”

    While Australia’s Ministerial Direction 111, which replaced MD 107, provides immigration case officers stricter guidance on assessing the Genuine Student requirement, and introduces a two-tier visa processing system that prioritises institutions with strong compliance records and low visa risks, it influences the decision-making process, not the entire visa mechanism unlike New Zealand’s recent move. 

    However, New Zealand is not the only model Australia could look to, according to stakeholders.

    A recent submission by the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI) to the ministers for education and home affairs in Australia pointed to examples from the UK and Canada, where students must obtain a new Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) and a new study permit, respectively, if they wish to change institutions.

    “Australia’s recent reforms, such as closing the concurrent CoE loophole and requiring CoEs for onshore visa applications, are steps in a similar direction but do not go far enough to address the core issue of unethical student poaching, misuse of student visa and provider switching,” stated AAERI in its submission in May to the Labor government. 

    After New Zealand’s changes were announced, regional director, Western Sydney University, Gareth Lewis also echoed a similar opinion on Australia’s reluctance to do what New Zealand, the UK, and Canada have done. 

    “It would appear that three modern advanced economies who have championed consumer protections and who have established international study destinations believe this measure is not contrary to ‘consumer choice’,” read Lewis’s LinkedIn post. 

    “Unfortunately Australia believes it is. This needs to change.” 

    Find out more about how Australia can improve its visa system at The PIE Live Asia Pacific 2025 on July 30, during the session “Visa status: MD111 and MD106 mapping – is the current visa system working?”, which will explore the impact of current visa policies on HE, VET, and ELICOS sectors, covering genuine student assessments, onshore switching, and ways to improve the operating environment. Check out more details here – PLAP 2025 agenda.

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  • AFSCME Municipal Workers Local 33 (Philadelphia) on Strike

    AFSCME Municipal Workers Local 33 (Philadelphia) on Strike

    After the latest marathon with the city, which ended without a deal, Philadelphia’s largest blue-collar union, AFSCME Local 33, is moving toward going on strike at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.



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  • U Rochester Ph.D. Students Strike for a Non-NLRB Election

    U Rochester Ph.D. Students Strike for a Non-NLRB Election

    University of Rochester Ph.D. student workers began striking this week to pressure the institution to agree to what they call a “fair union election.” And for the process to be fair, they say, it can’t be handled by the Trump-era National Labor Relations Board.

    “We don’t see any kind of path through the NLRB at present,” said George Elkind, a Ph.D. student on the proposed UR Graduate Labor Union’s organizing committee.

    The strike began Monday and continued Tuesday. Elkind said it’s unclear how many of the more than 1,400 students who would likely be represented by the union are withholding their labor. The walkout is another example of labor agitation continuing into the Trump era.

    Roughly a year ago, university officials and the union organizers began discussing plans for a private election, which both parties were amenable to. If they had reached an agreement, the NLRB—which usually handles unionization votes at private nonprofit institutions such as UR—wouldn’t have been involved.

    However, in February, after Donald Trump retook the presidency and fired a Democratic NLRB member and the agency’s general counsel, a university lawyer told student organizers that UR no longer wanted a private election, according to a document union members provided Inside Higher Ed. Instead, the lawyer wrote that they could pursue an election with the Trump-era NLRB.

    Scott Phillipson, president of SEIU 200United, a multi-university union that’s helping to organize the students, said UR officials “simply do not want these employees to have a union. That is what is going on here.”

    Phillipson said university officials were being disingenuous in suggesting the students use the NLRB.

    “They know it’s not an option,” he said. “But it’s a better public messaging, frankly, than ‘Just go away.’”

    An NLRB spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed Tuesday that the agency’s “regional offices are functioning as normal” and can run elections. But any appeals of election results would go to the actual board for which the agency is named. And since Trump ousted the Democratic board member, Gwynne Wilcox, and has left previous vacancies unfilled, the panel now doesn’t have the minimum required number of members to make decisions.

    If Trump eventually does appoint his own members to the board, allowing it to operate again, some union supporters worry the NLRB might use a grad student unionization case such as Rochester’s to overturn the 2016 Columbia University case precedent establishing that private nonprofit university grad workers can unionize through the NLRB.

    Student workers could continue to unionize at public universities in the states that allow such action, but those at private institutions would be left with no other path than to seek voluntary recognition from their universities.

    Elkind said UR officials know that the NLRB “is defunct—and would be hostile if it weren’t.” He said they want grad workers to go to the NLRB and risk a ruling decertifying grad unions at private universities nationwide. He called this “an extreme anti-labor position.”

    ‘Unprecedented Times’

    In an email, William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, said the strike “to compel the university to agree to a non-NLRB election is a sign of these unprecedented times.

    “There is a growing distrust and frustration among unions and their members with NLRB procedures and remedies, both of which are also under constitutional attacks by employers like SpaceX, Amazon, and the University of Southern California,” said Herbert, whose center is at Hunter College. “The firing of NLRB Board member Gwynne Wilcox and the reported removal of sensitive labor data from the NLRB by Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] staff has further undermined confidence in the agency.”

    The university, which didn’t provide an interview Tuesday, hasn’t said it abandoned the move toward a private election because it thinks grad workers would lose in front of the Trump-era NLRB. UR has cited other reasons, including a December court decision involving Vanderbilt University grad workers’ attempt to unionize.

    NLRB policy required Vanderbilt to reveal names, job classifications and other information about student workers whom the union might represent. But more than 100 students objected to sharing that, and Vanderbilt sued the NLRB and one of its regional directors, arguing that requiring students to turn over the information would violate their privacy under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

    A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled that Vanderbilt was likely right and granted a preliminary injunction blocking the NLRB requirements. A UR lawyer wrote that this made the university concerned about being “seen as facilitating the dissemination of potentially protected student data to a third party” if it went forward with the private election.

    But the lawyer went beyond the Vanderbilt case, saying that not requiring a prospective union to go through the NLRB would be a “significant deviation from the university’s typical practice.” He also noted the recent “sweeping and still unclear changes in the federal government’s support for the university’s missions,” adding that the Trump administration’s upheaval “includes a likely reduction in federal funding.”

    In an emailed statement Tuesday, a university spokesperson said “contingency plans are in place to ensure minimal disruption to our academic mission— including teaching and research activities—during a strike. In the event of prolonged strike activity, University officials are confident that the academic enterprise will continue as normal without interruption.”

    The spokesperson said “we are steadfast in the belief that entering into a private election agreement at this time is not in the best interests of the University community.”

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  • Wellesley Non-Tenure-Track Strike May Impact Class Credits

    Wellesley Non-Tenure-Track Strike May Impact Class Credits

    Hours after Wellesley College’s non-tenure-track faculty went on strike last Thursday, students received word that they might receive only half credit for courses taught by the professors on strike.

    The college attributed the decision to federal regulations on how much instruction students must receive per credit hour, noting that if the strike ends quickly, students will be able to return to their classes and get full credit. In the meantime, they were told they could sign up for other classes, taught by tenure-track faculty, for the last four weeks of the semester. That would allow them to continue to earn full credit hours, which is especially important for students who need to maintain full-time status for financial aid, athletics or visa-related reasons.

    According to college spokesperson Stacey Schmeidel, only about a third of non-tenure-track faculty members’ classes could be affected by this change; the remaining two-thirds met frequently enough during the first 10 weeks of the semester that they had already reached the required minimum number of instructional hours. Over all, she said, about 30 students out of the 2,350 enrolled at the women’s college are currently at risk of dropping below full-time status, though hundreds opted to switch into new classes to ensure they receive the number of credits they planned on for this semester.

    But students and faculty union members have questioned the college’s solution, noting that students may struggle to find replacement courses that fit their schedule or that they have the necessary prerequisites for.

    “Imagine being a student entering into a class that only has four weeks left,” said Jacquelin Woodford, a chemistry lecturer and organizing committee member for the faculty union, Wellesley Organized Academic Workers. “It’s such a weird plan that could all be avoided if the college just bargained with us and settled the contract.” Woodford also noted that striking faculty members had not been informed before Thursday about this plan and still haven’t received formal communication from the institution about what is happening with their classes.

    Non-tenure-track faculty at Wellesley began unionizing almost a year ago in an attempt to obtain higher wages and better job security. Union organizers say the institution has come back with only bare-bones offers.

    On March 25, administrators offered non-tenure-track faculty 2.75 percent annual raises for the duration of the contract and proposed adding an additional course to their teaching loads, for which they would be paid an additional $10,000. But union members argue that $10,000 is equivalent to what they are already paid for teaching an extra course.

    “The College’s proposal makes working overtime the new, required norm,” wrote Erin Battat, senior lecturer in the writing program and a member of the bargaining committee, in an email to The Wellesley News, the college’s student paper. “We had hoped that Wellesley was serious about their claims to care about averting a strike, but their actions at the bargaining prove otherwise.”

    WOAW’s latest proposal, meanwhile, includes a revised salary scale that would see some NTT faculty with more than 18 years at Wellesley earn over $170,000 a year—25 percent more than full professors with the same amount of experience. Wellesley has countered that the proposed pay scale, which would afford faculty raises of 54 percent in the contract’s first year, is untenable.

    The union voted in February to authorize a strike.

    “We called for a strike authorization vote to encourage Wellesley to make substantial progress towards our key priorities. Our goal is to negotiate a fair contract that will be ratified by our members,” said one bargaining committee member, Christa Skow, senior instructor in biological sciences, in an update on WOAW’s website at the time.

    Pizza and Ponchos

    Students have been supportive of the strike despite its impact on their courses, said Woodford, noting that they have joined the picket lines at the motor and pedestrian entrances to campus over the past several days.

    “They’ll come and go between their courses. They’re so kind; they’ve been sending us food and pizza and they brought us ponchos today for the rain,” she said, noting that tenured colleagues, alumnae and Massachusetts state politicians have also come out to support them.

    The next bargaining session will take place on Tuesday, and union organizers questioned why the institution was unwilling to bargain any earlier than five days into the strike. In an email, Schmeidel said the college and the union had, prior to the strike, mutually agreed to a session on April 3; after the strike began, Wellesley offered to move the session to today, April 1.

    She also said that the union had rejected the college’s proposal to work with a mediator.

    “The College feels that the union’s refusal to go to mediation and to instead call for a strike is arbitrary and premature,” she wrote.

    For some students, it’s unclear what the next few weeks will bring. Jeanne, a freshman who asked to have her last name withheld, is currently taking a writing course impacted by the strike. She said she received an email from the dean of first-year students saying that those in the course would receive full credit, but students should nevertheless attempt to keep up with the syllabus as much as possible. She doubts she’ll be able to, though, as the materials she needs for the next paper haven’t been posted for students to access online yet.

    Still, she said she is in favor of the strike, noting that WOAW has been transparent with the students about what the stoppage will entail since much earlier in the semester.

    “[WOAW] had been speaking about negotiations with the college since I arrived on the campus last semester,” she said. “They’ve been very clear with the students that they believe their treatment is unfair and they’ve been working with the college for a while now to get the situation fixed.”

    In an FAQ about how Wellesley will handle the strike, the institution said it is still figuring out how grading will be impacted by the half-credit courses and noted that it may be necessary to include a transcript note for anyone impacted. It said the same about making up any content students may lose out on as a result of the strike.

    “Department chairs and faculty are thinking seriously about any course content that may not have been covered and how to make up for this in a future semester,” the FAQ says.

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  • Community College of Philadelphia Averts a Strike

    Community College of Philadelphia Averts a Strike

    The Community College of Philadelphia reached a tentative agreement with its faculty and staff union, staving off an impending strike, 6ABC Action News reported.  

    The union, AFT Local 2026, or the Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, threatened to strike Wednesday morning if a deal wasn’t reached. But union and college leaders say they worked through Tuesday night to arrive at an agreement after more than a year of bargaining over employee contracts.  

    “After a long night of bargaining, Community College of Philadelphia is glad to have reached a tentative agreement with our partners in the Faculty and Staff Federation,” Donald Guy Generals, president of Community College of Philadelphia, said in a press release. “We are grateful for the hard work and collaboration that brought us to this milestone. The agreement secures fair terms and wage increases while ensuring the financial sustainability of the College. The College is thankful the spring semester will proceed uninterrupted for our students, faculty and staff.”

    The outstanding issues previously holding up an agreement were union proposals for wage and staffing increases and SEPTA passes for employees and students. The tentative agreement includes class size reductions and wage increases that were a compromise between the college and the union’s proposals. The union will also be invited to join ongoing discussions with SEPTA about securing public transportation benefits, according to the release from the college.

    “We showed what can happen when faculty, staff and students stand in real solidarity with each other,” Rainah Chambliss, co-president of the federation, said in a union press release. “This campaign wasn’t just about us. It was about our students and our community.”

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