Higher Education Legislative Advocacy Day 2025

Black text on top of a faded Arizona flag. Text reads "Higher education and legislative advocacy day 2025"

Scenes from our FIRST ANNUAL Higher Education Legislative Advocacy (HELA) Day

Picture of four people outside the Arizona State capitol. Three are holding blue signs that read "Labor Against Layoffs".

Three people outside the Arizona State Capitol. All three wear red tshirts. Front of tshirt says Higher Education Legislative Advocacy Day. Back says Together, We Can Change the Law.

Three people in front of a US flag, an Arizona state flag, and a POW-MIA flag. Two of the people hold blue "Labor Against Layoffs" signs.

Several people standing behind a podium outside the Arizona State Capitol.

Four people in a House office. One of the people is Arizona Representative Matt Gress.

Five people standing in front of the Arizona Capitol, holding up solidarity fists.

Three people standing in front of the Arizona State Capitol museum building.

So, What is HELA?

Higher Education Legislative Advocacy (HELA) Day is a multi-day event around our union's political advocacy efforts. We took our membership to the offices of legislators in Arizona's capitol to push for pro-union and pro-worker relationships and policies. This year's Lobby Day was graciously co-hosted by the Arizona Students Association (ASA) and Higher Education Labor United (HELU).

This year's HELA Day was comprised of two parts: training with ASA and HELU on Sunday, March 2nd, and meeting with Arizona legislators on Monday, March 3rd, 2025.

We had an incredible time at the Arizona State Capitol this year, training together on Sunday and speaking to legislators in their offices together on Monday. Monday morning, we co-hosted a press conference with Arizona Students' Association. We were joined by special guests Margaret Cook, CWA Vice President of the Public, Healthcare, and Education Workers Sector, and proud union member Senator Lauren Kuby.

Together, we can CHANGE THE LAW!

Higher Education Legislative Advocacy Town Hall

In preparation for this year's Higher Education Legislative Advocacy (HELA) Day, we gathered a group of local leaders and union organizers to share stories about successful advocacy campaigns. We examined these real-world success stories to inform our strategies for working with Arizona legislators. Political advocacy can directly lead to change - when we fight, we win! Our panelists included:

*Anne Langendorfger, United Campus Workers Tennessee
*Lauren Kuby, Arizona State Senator, LD-8
*Nancy Gutierrez, Arizona State Minority Leader, LD-18
*Jill Penn, United Campus Workers Georgia
*Miranda Lopez, Arizona Students Association

HELA Day's Co-Sponsors

Arizona Students Association		Since 1974, the Arizona Students’ Association (ASA) has advocated on behalf of the students of Arizona’s three public universities. As a student-led, 501c4 non-profit, ASA is dedicated to keeping higher education affordable and accessible. Increasingly Arizona students are attending community colleges as a supplement, or even as an alternative, to public universities; leading ASA to expand to represent community college students in the year of 2014. Since its inception 49 years ago, ASA has registered nearly 100,000 students to vote, developed thousands of students to be leaders on and off campus and worked to ensure students always have a voice surrounding issues that directly impact them.
Higher Education Labor United (HELU) is a national organization founded in 2021 to unite workers throughout U.S. higher education. HELU brings together unions that represent staff, student workers, adjunct, contingent, and tenured faculty, postdocs, university health system workers, and others. We come together to create and pursue a unified vision for higher education and to add our strength to a reinvigorated U.S. labor movement. Unions and organizations representing over 225,000 higher ed and allied workers across the U.S. have joined HELU as member organizations.		Higher Education Labor United