Workers across the University of Colorado system are organizing for a unified message for its leadership: create a path to collective bargaining.

This week, a day of action will be held at the university system’s four campuses to provide information about collective bargaining and discuss ongoing workforce challenges. This “Day of Action” will take place on Tuesday at the CU Boulder, CU Denver and CU Anschutz campuses, while UCCS will hold its demonstration on Thursday to coincide with the CU Board of Regents regular meeting scheduled that day.

UCCS professor and American Association of Professors chapter president Dylan Harris said that they are specifically asking for the board to amend its policies pertaining to faculty freedom and faculty governance to grant faculty and students the right to collective bargaining.

He explained that the AAUP and the United Campus Workers (UCW) have joined together on a unified message and pushed for collective bargaining this past year. Doing so on the board level is an alternative to a ballot initiative or state legislation, which can fail to pass due to compromises or a lack thereof.

This approach, he said, would ensure rights for one body of workers and set a precedent for others to follow.

“That’s the idea: if CU can get it, then other institutions could,” Harris said.  

Organizers said the need for this push comes from common reasons to unionize, such as higher wages and improved working conditions. They added that this representation would include all workers beyond professors, such as faculty and student workers.

The coordinated effort follows years of growth at each chapter of the UCW of Colorado and comes as the state finds itself somewhat of an outlier in collective bargaining rights in higher education.  

University of Colorado Boulder associate professor and UCW Colorado vice president Chloe East said that, of the 15 states currently with a Democratic governor and state legislature leadership, Colorado is the only one without collective bargaining rights in public higher education.

The state has seen some shifts recently, however. In 2020, the Colorado legislature passed the Colorado Partnership for Quality Jobs and Services Act, which allows state workers to unionize and collectively bargain. Last year, Denver voters approved ballot measure 2U, which requires the city to pass an ordinance ensuring city workers can begin collective bargaining as part of unions on Jan. 1, 2026.

East said the momentum gained across Colorado’s campuses also led to this call to action.

“UCW has been growing quite a bit,” she said. “And it’s become clear that having legal recognition is really important in having power as a union.”

Organizers at each campus noted stagnant wages as one reason to unionize, while sharing the unique challenges each campus faces.

Jessica Ellis, President of United Campus Workers Colorado and CU Anschutz research staff member, noted how her campus and its labs predominantly feature full-time salaried research assistants rather than graduate students, who receive low pay and have few long-term career options.

“So, we lose a lot of really skilled research scientists who are in these lab jobs,” she said. “A lot of them love the work at the university and kind of end up leaving for Pharma or for a private industry.”

She added that expensive parking fees and mandatory office workdays impact workers’ ability to access and afford childcare and nearby housing.

Collective bargaining, she said, would ensure that they have a say in all these types decisions or changes going forward.

“That’s the main thing we’re trying to get a hold of: get a voice at the table and say, ‘You can’t change things whenever you want,’” Ellis said. “We need stability, promises to be kept and things like that.”

At UCCS, Harris highlighted wage discrepancies between colleges and lecturers, flat-rate pay raises contingent on enrollment increases that weren’t met and the current lack of representation for student workers. To the last point, he said recent closures on campus have resulted in fewer jobs and increased workloads for the remaining student workforce.

East, who previously taught at CU Denver for nine years, said that she’s witnessed sizeable turnover, specifically in academic advisors, due to low pay. That has led to professors adding responsibilities that affect their regular work.

Since moving to Boulder, she said the biggest concern she’s noticed this year is academic freedom and recent mandates from the Trump Administration. Like colleges and universities across the country, CU was asked to sign a loyalty oath, which East said has made “a lot of people on this campus extremely nervous.”

“And there’s been concern and frustration about what the response (from leadership) could be,” East said.

Ellis echoed this concern, noting the federal research funding that has been pulled and remains threatened.

Over the past year, UCCS has been the subject of an internal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over its “race-based preferences” and saw multiple student visas revoked by federal agencies, though some were reinstated.

When reached for comment, a board of regents representative told The Gazette that Board Chair Callie Rennison was not aware of the calls to action by campus chapters.

Harris said the plan is to formally request that the board vote on collective bargaining sometime later this year and continue ongoing efforts to spread awareness in the meantime.

Despite the uncertainty with the board’s reception to the idea, he remains optimistic about the conversation.

“I think it’s time,” he said. “And I think, also, as far as I understand with the regents, it’s not antagonistic. There are voices at the highest level in the state that are sympathetic.”