1. Defend Our Civil Liberties - UE National Convention Resolution
  2. End Sexual Harassment in Our Workplaces and Unions - UE National Convention Resolution
  3. Academic Workers Letter on Protection of Chinese and All International Members of Our Campus Communities
  4. Statement on ICE Presence Reported and Visas Revoked
  5. Statement on Recent Executive Orders

Defend Our Civil Liberties - UE National Convention Resolution

The second Trump administration has exacerbated existing threats and violations of civil liberties in the United States and mounted a host of new dangers. Indiscriminate slashes to federal funding threaten the basic social safety nets upon which millions of working people rely. Efforts to dismantle the Department of Education threaten the rights of children to quality education. Attacks on reproductive care threaten fundamental bodily autonomy and criminalize basic healthcare. Trump’s packing of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with conservative appointees threatens the rights to unionization of millions of working people. The overall efforts of this administration have been to systematically erode the civil liberties of the American working class.

Working people are upset at the corruption and inaction of their own government. The rising prices of food and gas continue to outpace housing costs and inflation – all while the U.S. government starts and prolongs wars around the globe. Rather than providing material solutions to these crises, the Trump administration has vowed to scapegoat immigrants, in addition to several other vulnerable groups, redirecting anger against our broken system toward our fellow workers.

The wielding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in raids and crackdowns is not about immigration – it is about power. These raids are a systematization of violence and fear to protect the interests of the ruling class. By targeting immigrant and undocumented communities, the Trump administration expands its surveillance and police presence to ensure workers are divided.

Large demonstrations were held across the country calling for ICE out of their cities. President of SEIU California David Huerta was snatched from the street in a violent sweep in Los Angeles and, in a dramatic escalation, the National Guard and the U.S. military were deployed in June 2025 in a desperate attempt to intimidate people out of exercising their First Amendment rights.

The past several years have also been marked by young people, namely high school and college students, protesting for their voices to be heard. Across the nation, thousands of students on hundreds of campuses built solidarity encampments, walked out of graduation ceremonies, and went on hunger strikes to demand a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Palestine. Participants of these movements have been met with intimidation, both from their university administrators and the federal government, threatening academic expulsion, withholding of degrees, and legal action. As in the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi, those exercising their First Amendment rights have been abducted by federal agents and illegally detained in ICE facilities.

These retaliatory actions on college campuses are also a blatant attempt to weaken the U.S. labor movement. Grant Miner, a graduate worker at Columbia University and the President of UAW Local 2710 was expelled for his activism and solidarity with the encampments. Even in the phase of flagrant and systematized repression, students have bravely continued to speak out, and graduate workers across the nation continue to fight for recognition and bravely use their voices to demand fair contracts. As we enter several arduous years of political and economic struggle, sustained organizing and unionization efforts will be critical to strengthen the ability for students to stand for their beliefs.

The same forces silencing student activists are also working to destroy higher education and the labor movement within it. The Trump administration has withheld billions in federal research funding and informally blacklisted keywords in grant proposals, with the goal of coercing universities into censoring research and curricula in accordance with the right-wing political agenda. Research in lifesaving and critical fields, such as public health and climate change, are urgently under threat. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which safeguard equitable access to higher education and upward mobility, are being jeopardized. Workers continue to bear the devastating consequences of universities being starved under financial pressure designed to subjugate these institutions. Adjunct faculty, graduate workers, postdocs, staff, and university health systems workers already face poverty-level wages and job insecurity. By politicizing research funding, the Trump administration further weakens job protections for academic workers, making it harder for them to organize, collectively bargain, and speak out. The repression of student activism, the defunding of independent research, and the weakening of academic labor are all part of the same project: to erode universities as spaces of collective power and independent inquiry that can provide a check against creeping authoritarianism.

For LGBTQ+ individuals, the current moment is marked by a rapid erosion of the basic right to self-determination. Stoking fears rooted in deep, psychosocial hatred, the federal government now seeks to insert its eyes, ears, and hands into every bedroom and bathroom both by direct surveillance and enforcement, and by empowering those who would harass and harm LGBTQ+ individuals to do so with impunity. Denying trans individuals passports that accurately reflects their gender identities makes it near impossible for them to safely travel or identify themselves. Dismantling efforts towards gender-affirming care puts both the mental and physical health of trans individuals at risk.

The recent decision by a U.S. District Court in Tennessee v. Cardona strips trans individuals of harassment protections under Title IX, opening the door to invite back a veil of repression that had only started to lift. The administration has declared that sex is an immutable binary biological trait, yet any such definition as such fails to hold water. The message is clear—you do not have the right to define your identity and your relationships with others. That is the purview of the administration and its dogma, which will be enforced through harassment and repression. When such basic rights are denied to even one person, they are denied to all. We as members of UE must vehemently defend the rights of all – an injury to one is an injury to all.

The danger of the current moment is exacerbated by new technologies. Government powers of domestic surveillance have long been deployed against labor, especially the progressive trade unionism at the center of the UE. In recent years, the dangerous alliance between domestic surveillance agencies and Silicon Valley has only expanded the tools available for suppressing organizing workers. Artificial intelligence (AI) sits at the center of these new instruments, representing a dramatic growth in surveillance capabilities and dangerous threat to labor power and job security. Opaque conglomerates, in partnership with the federal government yet lacking any public accountability, now design this “transformative” technology with an eye towards the suppression of progressive labor power.

The chilling effect of denials of our democratic freedoms and civil liberties curbs progress in the U.S., limits the ability of all workers to make democratic choices for the future of our country, and thereby undermines our livelihoods, living standards, and working conditions. Without robust and proactive defense of our civil liberties, we risk the continuation of our broken system that puts profits over workers. It is clear that the fight to protect and regain civil liberties must continue regardless of which party controls the White House.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 79th UE CONVENTION:

  1. Opposes any change in the law that would further undermine our right to defend the interests of working people, specifically including changes designed to make picket-line activity subject to federal prosecution or would undermine working people’s ability to form a union and exercise their rights to collectively bargain;
  2. Urges all locals and members to support organizations such as Defending Rights Dissent, the National Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and Amnesty International;
  3. Demands Congress investigate revelations of political spying and disruption by the FBI and other federal agencies and pass legislation definitively outlawing these practices;
  4. Opposes any laws designed to limit the right to protest or further militarize domestic law enforcement;
  5. Demands the end of use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists;
  6. Calls for legislation to protect our civil liberties in the workplace, including:
    • Prohibiting random or blanket drug testing in the workplace;
    • Banning telephone, internet, and AI monitoring of employees;
    • Further restricting the use of lie detectors, cameras, GPS, AI, and other surveillance technologies in employment;
    • Full respect of the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals;
    • Creating policy that re-thinks and re-imagines how we can use technologies to benefit all working people, not just the billionaire class. Use technologies like AI to improve workers’ livelihoods and reject the use of AI in the use of technologies for the purpose of surveillance and control.
    • Opposing preventive detention and Justice Department policies that allow for closed hearings, secret evidence, refusal to name those detained, elimination of attorney-client privilege, and long detentions without bond without any specific articulated reason;
  7. Demands Congress reform the process for placing groups on terrorist lists to ensure that they have sufficient notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond to charges;
  8. Supports constitutional reform seeking to nullify the Citizens United decision, putting an end to unlimited financial influence of the billionaire class in our country’s democracy;
  9. Supports legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, supports strong whistleblower protection legislation, and opposes efforts to intimidate or bar the press and other news media from reporting on government activities;
  10. Supports repeal of McCarthy-era “speech crime” laws, including the Smith Act and the Subversive Activities Control Act, and opposes exclusion of immigrants or refugees based on political beliefs or memberships;
  11. Supports the abolition of the death penalty and an end to mass incarceration;
  12. Opposes legislation that would curtail the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals to participate in marriage, access medical care, be recognized in society and by the law, and any other laws that would impinge on the rights of individuals to live their lives as free and equal citizens.

End Sexual Harassment in Our Workplaces and Unions - UE National Convention Resolution

Women and femme-presenting people have always been the vanguard of the labor movement. Women labor leaders like Clara Lemlich, Mother Jones, Fannie Sellins, Mary Moultrie, and Dolores Huerta have led the fight for improved working conditions and gender justice in the United States. In 1909, the women-led New York Shirtwaist Strike transformed the conditions of garment workers in the country, paving the way for decades of labor reforms for all workers. During the West Virginia Coal wars, women who lived on mine company property played an outsized role in maintaining and organizing strikes and pickets. Women labor leaders have also played a prominent role in combating racism, sexism, and capitalism during the era of the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.

These women have organized not only for better wages and benefits, but also for workplaces free of harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender presentation, sexual orientation, age, and race, among others. Research shows that unions play a key role in reducing gender and racial disparities in pay and rates of unjust firings. Surveys show that 58% of women report having experienced gender harassment at work. Although it is the employer’s legal duty to provide workers with a safe and healthy workplace, it is the responsibility of union members and leaders to aggressively hold the boss accountable and to defend members who face harassment, discrimination, and bullying. Sexual harassment takes an intense physical, mental, and emotional toll and has been shown to limit workers’ careers and force them out of the workforce.

UE locals have been at the forefront of the fight against sexual harassment, winning and enforcing contract protections such as gender equity; nondiscrimination; anti-harassment; and interim relief measures in Grievance Procedure clauses. In the past, many UE Locals like UE Local 150 in North Carolina and UE Local 115 in New Jersey have organized against sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, citing widespread sexual harassment as one of the main reasons they unionized and fought for stronger contract protections.

Sexual harassment and discrimination are against UE’s values. They are illegal under most union contracts. Sexual harassment is perniciously deployed against women who are seen as advocating too much for themselves and their coworkers. It is a tool of the boss, used to stoke division and sow distrust between workers and prevent them from claiming their collective power. An environment where sexual harassment is tolerated and perpetuated weakens our union as a whole. The fight against sexual harassment is a fight for women and for all workers.

Beyond combating sexual harassment in the workplace, we must combat all forms of sexual harassment in our union. In the labor movement, women seeking positions of leadership often face sexist attacks, harassment, and bullying. Although UE has led the fight for gender equity, UE is not immune from sexism and sexual harassment. Fighting to end sexual harassment must begin with our conduct as union members and leaders, and we must hold each other to account to build a union where women rank-and-file members and leaders are empowered and respected. UE’s call to organize all workers, “regardless of skill, age, sex, nationality, color, race, religious or political belief or affiliation, sexual orientation, disability or immigration status,” must be renewed over and over again.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 79th UE CONVENTION:

  1. Condemns all attacks on women, especially women of color and immigrant women, and nonbinary workers, be they on the basis of gender presentation, sexual orientation, race, or age, as such attacks directly contradict our obligation to unite all workers and pursue an aggressive struggle to improve our conditions;
  2. Commits to fight all forms of sexual harassment within our unions and the labor movement;
  3. Urges locals to establish Women’s Caucuses, following Local 506’s Unity Council, for the purpose of fighting for women’s issues at the bargaining table and in grievances; and to provide a space for women and nonbinary organizers to build community and solidarity together; and further urges locals to establish explicit spaces for organizers and members who are women of color to build community and claim their power;
  4. Re-establishes a UE National Women’s Caucus;
  5. Expands and strengthens protections against sexual harassment and discrimination as a bargaining priority at all levels of UE;
  6. Urges locals to educate members, officers, and staff on sexual harassment and programs to combat harassment, intimidation and sexist attitudes wherever found, through trainings and developed programs and workshops, specifically making use of the UE Steward article on stopping sexual harassment;
  7. Develops anti-sexual harassment workshops, to be held at the Regional and National Conventions;
  8. Pledges to defend our members aggressively against sexual harassment.

Academic Workers Letter on Protection of Chinese and All International Members of Our Campus Communities

Dear Executives and Trustees of our institutions,

The international members of our community are under threat, and with them the prospects for rich research collaboration and a diverse academic community. We look to you for leadership in ensuring the rights of our international peers and academic freedom are protected.

Our Chinese colleagues are one group at special risk. On March 19th, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent letters to several universities, requesting detailed information on Chinese faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. The letters seek data on their enrollment, research involvement, and funding, portraying all Chinese academics as a national security threat and calling visa holders a “Trojan horse for Beijing.”

These letters are an escalation of Sinophobic sentiments that have been on the rise as a result of growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China. Under policies such as the China Initiative, which has investigated hundreds of Chinese scholars for alleged espionage, and Proclamation 10043’s visa restrictions on scholars affiliated with certain institutions in the PRC, Chinese academics have increasingly been harassed, interrogated, and denied entry to the US — including many in our communities.

Just days before the March 19th letters from the House Select Committee on the CCP, Congress introduced a bill to ban student visas for all Chinese nationals. By solely focusing restrictions on Chinese nationals in certain fields absent any evidence of wrongdoing, these policies stigmatize them and jeopardize their vital contributions to research and society.

Complying with these letters’ requests would not only contribute to demonizing Chinese nationals, but also set a dangerous precedent for victimizing any group arbitrarily labeled as a threat. At a time when the Trump administration is targeting international faculty, students, and academic workers, standing fast to strong principles of fairness, due process and academic freedom is more important than ever.

Our employers should not do Trump’s work for him.

As essential members of this institution, we cannot stay silent against attacks on international academics. Our university must resist efforts to target or profile members of our community by nationality. We, the undersigned, demand that the leadership of our institutions take the following actions:

  1. Refuse to provide any information on Chinese faculty, postdocs, graduate, and undergraduate students requested in the House Select Committee on the CCP’s letters. If the University is legally bound to comply, it should release a public statement denouncing governmental overreach and reaffirming the university’s commitment to academic freedom, inclusivity, and protecting all community members, regardless of national origin, race, or ethnicity.

  2. Reject any and all voluntary cooperation - to the extent that is legally permissible - with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or any other federal agency requesting information on academic workers without due legal process.

  3. Establish formal mechanisms to provide institutional, financial and legal support for students, staff, and faculty who are targeted, denied entry, and/or deported, and take proactive measures to prevent such violations of privacy, due process, and civil liberties.

  4. If federal agencies request data on international campus students and workers, the University must notify affected individuals before disclosure and inform them of their rights. If individuals have previously shared data voluntarily (e.g., post-graduate employment records), they should be given the option to delete it within legal reason.

Endorsers:

  • Graduate Employees’ Organization at UIUC, GEO Local 6300 IFT/AFT
  • Harvard Graduate Student Union, HGSU-UAW Local 5118
  • MIT Graduate Student Union, UE Local 256 MIT GSU
  • Graduate Employees Together–University of Pennsylvania, GETUP-UAW
  • University of Maryland Graduate Labor Union, UMD Graduate Labor Union-UAW
  • Graduate Employee Organization at University of Massachusetts Amherst, GEO-UAW Local 2322
  • The Union of Academic Student Employees, Postdocs & Researchers at the University of California, UAW Local 4811
  • Graduate Workers Union at George Washington University, GWU2-SEIU Local 500
  • Graduate Student Workers Union at USC, GSWOC-UAW Local 872
  • The Union for Graduate Employees at New York University, NYU-GSOC-UAW Local 2110
  • The Union of Academic Student Employees, Postdocs & Researchers at the University of Washington, UAW Local 4121
  • USC-AAUP
  • University of Richmond AAUP
  • SEIU Local 500
  • Graduate Rights & Our Wellbeing (GROW) at Purdue University
  • Teachers and Researchers United at Johns Hopkins University, TRU-UE Local 197
  • Northwestern University Graduate Workers, NUGW-UE Local 1122
  • Stanford Graduate Workers Union, SGWU-UE Local 1043
  • Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University, GLO-AFT Local 6516
  • AAUP Purdue
  • UChicago AAUP
  • Teaching Assistants Association Executive Board, AFT Local 3220 (University of Wisconsin Madison)
  • Duke Graduate Students Union, SEIU Southern Region Local 32
  • Cornell University AAUP

Statement on ICE Presence Reported and Visas Revoked

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 5th 2025.

At approximately 4:00 PM on Friday, April 4, reports were circulated to the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) Local Executive Board along with many of you of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence on campus. The Santa Clara Rapid Response Network could not confirm any ICE activity at this time.

However, we are learning that four Stanford University students and two recent graduates have had their student visas revoked by federal authorities. Attacks against the international scholar community are not a potentiality, but imminent reality. Students and graduate workers across the country have had their visas revoked, been expelled, and been abducted for the “crimes” of expressing their constitutional rights of free speech, press, and assembly.

We recognize the terror, sorrow, and anger our community may be feeling. No Stanford student, graduate worker, instructor, staff, or community member should be made to fear for their life or livelihood, nor should we have to fear whether or not our coworkers will be abducted unknowingly by ICE.

At their core, these tactics are a shock and awe tactic to try to silence us, aiming to paralyze any momentum into inaction. As graduate student workers and members of the broader labor movement, we must take bold action to oppose the attacks on our constitutional rights to free speech and protest as well as the slashes to our funding that stifle academic freedom and progress.

Sustained, mass mobilization efforts are needed to support those threatened by ICE, and moreover to safeguard our community at-large. This is a moment for graduate student workers to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with our international graduate workers. Unions are our first line of defense to safeguard our rights as workers – join us!

Below are updated resources from the 3/29/25 SGWU email around ICE and international students:

Statement on Recent Executive Orders

Released Feb. 14, 2025.

On February 5th, our National Union, UE, released a statement that included the following: “We will take whatever action necessary to defend our members, especially those most vulnerable to attacks in this period. We will fight for academic freedom and the right to produce research that advances humanity, irrespective of whether the products of that research pose inconvenient truths to those in power.”

SGWU unequivocally agrees. We remain committed to protecting our rights, upholding our hard-fought contract, and supporting each other despite efforts to dismantle our power as workers and individuals. We write today to advocate for all our members’ rights, freedoms, and well-being and call on Stanford to do the same.

Over the past three weeks, the Trump administration has made numerous attacks on members of our community. They have attempted to cancel the visas of international students who have engaged in their protected First Amendment right to protest and to deport undocumented workers. They have attempted to freeze federal funding for research grants, limit NIH funding, and eliminate all research and programs that promote DEI. And they are trying to erase transgender identities, including by using Title IX to justify discrimination.

SGWU stands with all students and workers who are affected by these executive orders. For those concerned about their safety and well-being, we wanted to make it clear that there are protections under our contract and existing law:

  • Stanford must support all graduate workers, regardless of their immigration status. Our international graduate worker article states “the University shall not release information regarding Graduate Worker immigration status to the Department of Homeland Security unless legally required to do so.” Despite the current executive order, the immigration status of individual higher education students remains protected under The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
  • Our five-year funding letter reiterates Stanford’s commitment to SGWU to provide at least 12-month 5-year funding to all enrolled PhD students in good academic standing, regardless of the state of research grants and federal funding. Graduate workers’ compensation rates are also set in the Compensation Article in our contract through 2027, meaning salaries cannot be reduced because of a loss or cut in federal funding. Moreover, Stanford clarified as a result of union negotiations that no program, department, or faculty member may require a doctoral student to obtain external funding or to self-fund as a condition of admission, entry to, or continuation in the degree program. The Appointment Security article of the contract also ensures funding cannot be cut off during an appointment.
  • Our contract contains strong nondiscrimination protections on the basis of race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and gender expression, in addition to other identities, and broad non-identity-based protections against power abuse in the workplace. These protections and avenues to real recourse through our grievance procedure remain in force independent of the Title IX process. Additionally, Stanford reiterated in a letter that the services provided through the Weiland Health Initiative, which include care specific to the LGBTQ community, are funded through endowed funds. This means these funds cannot be used for any other purposes and therefore will be maintained despite the current political environment.

SGWU reminds Stanford that they must uphold these obligations at a minimum. However, they can do more. We call on the University to urgently and seriously advocate for the protection of all its graduate students and the community at large, by (1) reiterating its commitment to continued funding for all graduate workers, (2) affirm, as it did in 2017, its support for all students, without “regard to their immigration status, religion, nationality, ethnicity or other characteristics”, and (3) confirm its existing obligation to not cooperate with immigration authorities unless explicitly required by law.

SGWU, as a union for all graduate workers, is committed to supporting each other through this challenging time. As a rank-and-file union, it is our members who keep each other safe and ensure Stanford upholds all the crucial protections we won in the contract. Interested in being part of this critical work? Consider becoming a Union Steward. Stewards will ensure all graduate workers are afforded the full protection of our contract. SGWU is also starting a working group to create opportunities for mutual aid and social infrastructure to support Stanford graduate workers across campus. If you’re interested in being a Steward or joining this working group, email contact@sgwu.us.

In solidarity,
SGWU Interim Grievance Committee