SUNY Contract Ratified, AAUP Gets Political

United University Professions, the State University of New York system’s faculty union, cemented its contract win last week. It represents more than 42,000 faculty members, and most of them voted to ratify a new five-year contract that includes across-the-board pay raises each year, starting with a 4.5 percent bump in 2026, as well as provisions that expand due process and job security protections and minimize the role of student surveys in teacher effectiveness evaluations.

The agreement, which will run through July 1, 2031, also includes guardrails on artificial intelligence use and states that all SUNY courses will be under the “direction and responsibility” of humans, who will have “ultimate accountability” for the work done by AI.

“One of our biggest concerns heading into negotiations was the threat of artificial intelligence to our members and to the quality of a SUNY education,” Fred Kowal, president of UUP, said in a news release. “We will build upon these protections in future negotiations, because we believe that these protections will go far in safeguarding the jobs of our members.”

School may be out, but several unions, including California State University’s skilled trade workers’ union, spent July continuing their fights for pay raises and good-faith bargaining—conflicts that appear poised to spill over into the 2026–27 school year. Get the latest on these ongoing battles in this edition of Labor Watch.

(POTENTIAL) STRIKE ALERT: The Harvard Academic Workers union, which represents 2,500 non-tenure-track teachers and researchers at Harvard University, voted on July 25 to authorize a strike. The union has met 43 times with Harvard administrators over nearly two years to bargain for its first contract, but negotiations on wages and workplace protections remain stalled, according to a news release.

“It is an absolute slap in the face to receive emails from management praising how valuable and important our work is to the university—especially when we are under attack from the current federal administration—while simultaneously being told we won’t even receive a basic cost of living adjustment,” Ramsés Martínez, an engineer at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, said in the release.

The union has not disclosed a concrete plan to strike, but an authorization vote gets it one step closer to doing so.

CSU TEAMSTERS TURN UP THE HEAT: The California State University skilled trade workers’ union rallied outside the system Board of Trustees meeting earlier this month, ratcheting up their pressure on system leaders to pay workers retroactive raises the unions said were promised in July 2025, according to a union news release.

“Enough is enough. Stop asking us to shoulder the burden while you celebrate new funding,” Carlos Sanchez, supervising locksmith and Teamsters Local 2010 chief steward at San Diego State University, said in the release. “Honor your budget, honor your stated priorities, and bring us proposals that include meaningful permanent retroactive salary increases. Our members have earned nothing less and will not accept anything less.”

The previous bargaining agreement expired on June 30, the same day members voted no confidence in CSU Chancellor Mildred García. During the public comment portion of the board meeting, Teamsters—and the California Faculty Association members who attended in solidarity—began to chant, “No confidence,” and the trustees quickly ended the meeting, the union said in a blog post.

CSU officials declined to comment on the rally and pointed Inside Higher Ed’s to the system’s bargaining updates webpage.

ICYMI: AAUP GETS POLITICAL: The national American Association of University Professors made its first-ever political endorsement last week, throwing its weight behind Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. A poll of AAUP’s Michigan members found that about 80 percent supported the AAUP making an endorsement and 97 percent favored El-Sayed. In a news release, the AAUP called him “a fierce champion for debt-free and tuition-free higher education.”

“He has vowed to stand up to the Trump Administration’s ideological assault on the sector and defend the rights of students and faculty to speak out on political issues, question authority, and engage in peaceful protest without fear of retribution,” the release stated.

Todd Wolfson, who was elected president of the AAUP in June 2024, has not shied away from political fights. Last week, he told Inside Higher Ed that engaging in “politics proper” is needed and that the organization won’t exist in an “ivory tower” and wait for politics to affect its members.

“Unions are political organizations,” Wolfson said during a debate last month with professor and commentator Jonathan Turley, “and so we have shifted the organization to reflect that.”

Earlier in July, the AAUP released a report calling out state politicians and federal officials for “extorting” colleges and universities by withholding billions of dollars in research funding to compel governance and ideological changes at the institutions.

THE FIRST OF SEVERAL ULPs: Howard Community College’s faculty union filed an unfair labor practice charge earlier this month, requesting that faculty be paid $35 an hour for the additional work they must do to bring all student-facing courses and course websites into compliance with new federal accessibility requirements, The Baltimore Sun reported. The union asked college officials to bargain over compensation for the work but was rejected, according to the Sun.

More charges are coming, according to union chair Nadene Vevea, who said the college has not bargained in good faith.

“I really believe in our mission and really believe in our vision, but I don’t think that that’s what we’re doing right now. And I feel like we need to do a better job, but it can’t be one-sided. It can’t just be that myself or the faculty at HCC are doing all of the work and not being supported, not being trusted, being undercut at every possible turn,” Vevea told the Sun.

The college declined to comment to the Sun about the charge.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS, MIT: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student union plans to hold a Healthcare Town Hall on Aug. 6 to address recent proposals from administration that seek “the right to reduce graduate workers’ healthcare coverage at any time,” according to a news release. The union is in the middle of bargaining for its second contract and has been since late April.