United Academic Workers
15th August 2026
In June, the president of the United Auto Workers celebrated the victory of one of “the UAW’s own” in a Democratic primary election. Shawn Fain wasn’t talking about a machinist from Flint or an assembly-line worker in Kokomo. He meant Claire Valdez, a program assistant in Columbia University’s visual arts department, who won the primary in New York’s overwhelmingly Democratic Seventh Congressional District with 58 percent of the vote. She will be prohibitively favored to win the seat in November.
Valdez came to politics through her union. She joined UAW Local 2110 as a Columbia employee, served on her unit’s bargaining committee, and in 2022 was elected chair of a unit representing 500 administrative coworkers. Local 2110 holds some 30 contracts covering universities, publishing houses, museums, and law firms, and its Columbia units have included thousands of graduate student workers.
Valdez offers a preview of what the UAW is becoming: a union that puts politics first and is leaning heavily on higher education to sustain its dwindling numbers. The results of this transformation are changing not just unions but higher ed itself.