On February 22-24 next year, the Bargaining for the Common Good in Higher Education Convening at Rutgers University will bring together leaders from higher education and health care unions, racial justice, and other community organizations from across the country to strategize about how to transform contract negotiations into broader community fights and how to wage inspiring common good campaigns.

The gathering will coincide with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)’s national conference, where student activists from across the country will come together at Rutgers in the fight against poverty and further financialization of our colleges and universities. We hope to build on the great work that many local unions and community groups across the country have done around Bargaining for the Common Good, and center the discussion on the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher education.

Bargaining for the Common Good in Higher Education Convening
February 22nd – 24th
Rutgers University – New Brunswick, NJ

The concept of Bargaining for the Common Good is about forming long-term community-labor partnerships around a common vision for the change we need to see in our cities, states, and country, and fighting for that change both at the bargaining table and in the streets. Workers’ lives do not end when they leave the workplace, so unions should partner with community organizations to develop campaigns and bargaining demands that improve the broader communities that workers live and work in. This means using the tool of bargaining and campaigning to:

1. craft campaigns and bargaining demands that are in partnership between unions, community groups, and worker centers;
2. transcend the bargaining frameworks and norms that say that unions can only bargain over wages and benefits and reject them where they are not useful;
3. embrace direct action against the corporate targets that are standing in the way of our vision for our communities; and
4. build and maintain strong unions with high member engagement in the wake of a shifting legal environment.

We are encouraging each university, college, or system to attend the convening as a “cohort”, with representatives from each local union, community organization, and student organization.  In your application, please state which partner organizations you hope to attend with.  Click here to fill out the application.   We want this gathering to not just be a convening, but really a launching pad for innovative work folks can do together. Please apply to join us from February 22nd-24th, 2018 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ!  We will get back to you within two weeks of your registration to confirm participation and logistics.

Reach out to Marilyn Sneiderman at msneiderman@gmail.com with any questions.