U.S. university unions rush to organize before Trump White House

NEW YORK, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- At campuses across the country, including top California universities, New York University and Harvard, unions representing graduate student workers, part-time and non-tenure track faculty and others, are rapidly and aggressively moving to organize workers, in fears of a more pro-business, anti-labor Donald Trump White House, reported the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

"For many part-time and non-tenured faculty, who are a backbone of undergraduate education, the union activism reflects their longtime frustrations as lower paid and easily let-go instructors, experts said. Now, time is of the essence," noted the report.

"It's the pre-Trump rush," John Logan, a professor in the department of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, was quoted as saying, as unions anticipate new conservative appointees taking over positions in the federal agency that enforces U.S. labor laws. Unions, he said, "are thriving on campuses."

A September report from the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College found that both student worker and faculty unions are growing, with students labor movements moving at a faster clip.

Between 2012 and 2023, the number of unionized graduate student and postdoctoral workers more than doubled, from roughly 64,000 to 150,000. Faculty unions also increased by 7 percent, from 374,000 to 402,000, in the same period, the report said.