UAW Higher Education Council Special Meeting

Higher Education Council Special Meeting

Dear UAW Higher Education Family,

This May we held our annual Higher Education Council meeting virtually to accommodate busy schedules and a costly travel year for local unions. At our Council meeting, hundreds of members spoke about their organizing wins in two panel discussions and participated in organizing workshops focused on increasing Local membership, fighting grievances, and organizing international workers. While this was a great opportunity to share strategies and work on skills to win locally, we believe there’s a lot more work to do to win nationally.

With all of the attacks on higher education and our members who work there, we are calling a special meeting of the Higher Education Council to discuss these challenges and how we are organizing to stop them.

The UAW Higher Education Council will meet on December 8, 2026 at 12pm PT / 1pm MT / 2pm CT / 3pm ET (virtual meeting). UAW members or workers on active UAW organizing campaigns in the higher education sector interested in attending the Council meeting should fill out the meeting registration form.

Process for Electing Council Delegates
Per the Higher Education Council Bylaws, each bargaining unit is allotted delegates and votes to the Higher Education Council based on membership size. See the attachment that includes the number of delegates and votes for each bargaining unit, organized by Local Union. Many bargaining units elected delegates in 2025 are still completing their term. If you need to hold vacancy elections to replace any delegate, please make sure the elections are completed by November 15, 2026.

Eligibility for Delegates: Any unit member in good standing may run to be a delegate for their unit, or as an at-large delegate if their unit has less than 100 members. Presidents of local unions representing workers in higher education are eligible to run as at-large delegates, or as delegates from the higher education unit of which they are a member.

Higher Education Council Per Capita Dues
Per the Council Bylaws, beginning July 1, 2025, each local union with Higher Education bargaining units should have begun contributing a portion of their monthly dues to fund the activities of the Council. Please ensure your local is paying into the Council Dues. If you have
questions about your contributions, please reach out to the Higher Education Department at highered@uaw.net.

Registration
Council delegates and interested members may register to attend the Council meeting using the form linked below. UAW members or workers on active UAW organizing campaigns in the higher education sector may attend the Council meetings but only elected council delegates will be able to vote.

Meeting Registration Form

Meeting Schedule
This meeting will last for 2 hours and while we are not planning sub-council meetings at this time, we will encourage the sub-councils to schedule meetings before the end of the year to follow up on organizing plans discussed in the meeting.

Other
There is no conference registration fee. Expenses including lost time and per diem are the responsibility of the Local Union.

If you have any questions, please contact us at highered@uaw.net.