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By Freddy R
WALTHAM, MA – Research associates, academic administrators, department coordinators, and academic advisors started 2025 by voting to unionize under SEIU 888 at Brandeis University. Motivated by pay freezes, increased workloads, and layoffs, workers voted 78-6 in January to protect good jobs and address ongoing issues of low wages and burnout in their ranks.
Tensions between workers and management had been simmering for five years. In response to COVID-19, the university paused all merit pay increases for non-unionized workers. While only a small change in total compensation, many workers expected to receive these changes in pay to cover increases in rent or groceries. Meanwhile, management increased workers’ workloads as the pandemic exacerbated issues around low staffing.
Eventually, workers had enough.
Anger simmers as wage increases flatline
All employees I spoke to expressed understanding of the freezes and workload increase as the pandemic brought a whole host of unforeseen challenges to Brandeis, emphasizing the community-rootedness of their jobs when Brandeis respected them. But as the pandemic came to an end, many workers expected a return to normalcy – including merit pay increases. Management had other plans. Citing financial issues around a lack of postgraduate enrollments, management paused non-unionized staff merit pay increases again until October 1, 2024.
Meanwhile, Brandeis president Ron Liebowitz reportedly failed to meet fundraising expectations, yet eventually won his desired five-year contract with an increased wage, in large part due to a Boston Globe piece centered around a leaked letter. Workers suggested Liebowitz himself provided the letter to counteract the university’s Board of Trustees.
Brandeis University has an endowment of over $1 billion.
The president’s wage increased while others flatlined. Faculty were not sympathetic to the Brandeis president. Despite negotiating for more money with the university’s Board, Liebowitz stepped down from his position on November 1, 2024, after a resounding no-confidence vote from faculty.
A union, a community
Inspired by the long history of unionization at Brandeis and the number of other bargaining units at the University, administrative workers decided to take direct action. Backed by SEIU 888, the workers presented a petition and organized rallies. These actions culminated with workers attempting to deliver the petition to the Brandeis Board of Trustees. Security shoved workers against the wall and forced them from the building during the delivery. Management quietly reinstated the workers’ merit pay raises.
But management wasn’t done. Brandeis cut over sixty administrative staff positions, offering severance packages in exchange for voluntary resignations, shortly after workers submitted their the petition. Workers again stressed that this was a far cry from the Brandeis they had worked for, when Brandeis respected their employees and the community that workers served. These layoffs also exacerbated already present issues of limited staffing and increasing workloads, adding structural factors to simmering anger.
“This is a union; it’s a community.”
Workers began collecting cards for an official union election. They relied heavily on community support, the same whole-worker strategy adopted by teachers in Fitchburg, MA that won their union in the same month as Brandeis workers. Successful organizing required extensive networking and leveraging of social connections in siloed academic workplaces. Much of the organizing at Brandeis was done through hybrid means, with workers describing an intensive effort involving emails, phone calls, and texts to reach colleagues—many of whom they had never met before. Doing so required overcoming fears and challenges associated with digital communication.
Organizers attributed their success not just to the goal of unionizing but to building a sense of community: “This is a union; it’s a community.” The union also benefited from strong support from numerous other unions on campus, which helped push back against anti-union sentiment and fears.
Much of the campaign was also led by women, who coworkers referred to as “badass.”
Management responds with bureaucratic union-busting
Unlike corporations such as Amazon or Starbucks, Brandeis did not launch an aggressive open-air anti-union campaign. The institution instead relied on bureaucratic tools to resist unionization. One tactic involved defining inclusion and exclusion criteria for the bargaining unit. Higher education workers are often the only employees in their respective departments, meaning bargaining unit composition can be contested. For example, museum workers who had signed authorization cards were ultimately excluded for “logistical reasons.”
By late October, 2024, organizers finished collecting signatures. On October 31, they delivered the official election petition to the provost, accompanied by a rally outside the administrative offices. With the petition filed, the focus shifted to boosting voter turnout and maintaining momentum. Again, workers highlighted the crucial support from other unions on campus.
The election took place on December 12, 2024, with 84 workers casting ballots in what turned out to be a landslide victory for the union.
Workers are now faced with, as one worker put it, “the hard part:” bargaining. At the time of interviews in early 2025, workers were currently holding elections for electing a bargaining committee and ensuring that the diverse working conditions of the unit were represented. They will join other unions on campus, like the librarians, whose original contract expired in June 2024.
With this win, Brandeis staff now join a growing wave of unionized higher education workers, showing that when institutions fail to uphold their commitments to staff, collective action can force change. With bargaining on the horizon, workers remain committed to ensuring that the Brandeis they once believed in—a university that values its employees—can be restored.
Freddy Reiber is a PhD student at Boston University researching collective action and technology. He is a member of SEIU 509 and Boston DSA.
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