Secretary-Treasurer:
Danielle Aubert
Wayne State University
I am running for Secretary-Treasurer of the AAUP as part of the United Faculty for the Common Good slate because we need a united, coherent vision for higher education.
Over the last 7 months we have seen AAUP chapters around the country take leadership roles to defend academic freedom and the right to protest when our college and university administrators have failed us. Now more than ever, AAUP is playing a central in defining the future of higher education.
In 2021 I was elected President of Wayne Academic Union (AAUP-AFT Local 6075). Our 50-year old union had not seen a major change in leadership in decades. As incoming president, it became immediately apparent that for us to be a fighting, member-driven union, we needed to review all our internal processes — including our finances — and put structures in place that would engage and support an active membership. Since I took office we reversed a trend of operating at a financial deficit, we have a more diversified and democratic leadership, new name and website, better and clearer communication channels, a growing core of activists, and more membership engagement.
I prioritized building solidarity with part-time faculty, graduate student workers, custodians, building engineers, IT staff, and all the workers at Wayne State University. Our unique issues vary from unit to unit, but we are all workers committed to our students and the project of accessible higher education. This year, for the first time, our local is bargaining for an emergency fund to address student housing insecurity. The student senate issued a resolution of support for the union’s core demands in bargaining, an unprecedented show of solidarity.
Our local is jointly affiliated with AAUP and AFT. I have served on various statewide and national committees in both AFT and AAUP, from the AFT Higher Ed Policy and Program Committee to co-chairing the statewide Tenure-Track and Academic Staff Constituency Group. On the AAUP side I have worked with leaders at other Michigan chapters to define and maintain a coalitional structure.
If elected, I would work on putting the structures in place for AAUP staff and local leaders to respond quickly, confidently, and collectively to the current moment. I would prioritize meeting with collective bargaining and advocacy chapters to understand what is happening at the local level on our respective campuses. I believe that a good union leader should always return to the members first, and take guidance from what is happening on the ground. We must be in solidarity with students and all campus workers.
We must work toward a future where college is free, academic workers have job security and equal pay for equal work, and academic freedom extends to the entire campus community.
I hope you will support me and the United Faculty for the Common Good slate: Todd Wolfson, Rotua Lumbantobing, and Chenjerai Kumanyika.
Biographical Information
I am a Professor of Graphic Design at Wayne State University in Detroit. I have been involved in social justice, labor activism, and coalition work in the community for many years. I studied graphic design at Yale University in the early 2000s and had my first union experience there as a graduate worker. I organized my department to vote to unionize, and through that work became involved with the staff unions on campus. I experienced firsthand the power of wall-to-wall worker solidarity during a major campus-wide strike in 2003 by four major unions. The strike drew support from the as-yet-unrecognized graduate workers union, a broad coalition of New Haven community, and many elected officials, and shut down parts of the city.
In 2020, as a rank-and-file union member at Wayne State, I worked with student groups to organize a town hall on student debt and college for all that brought together members of the Debt Collective, high school students, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and university faculty. A few months later, I coordinated with other unions on campus to respond to IT staff layoffs and wage and safety issues facing workers who were forced to return to campus during the Covid-19 shutdown. In 2019, after General Motors announced a plan for multiple plant closures, I helped coordinate a rally for a Green New Deal that brought together climate justice activists and GM workers from Brazil, Canada, Ohio, and Michigan at the annual auto show gala in downtown Detroit.
As a graphic designer and writer my work examines methods of production, machines and labor. I have published several books, including, most recently, a record of the Detroit Printing Co-op, an IWW print shop that existed in the 1970s and printed tens of thousands of leftist pamphlets, posters, and books.