Higher education workers face ever more insecurity, as administrations use the pandemic to institute layoffs, undermine programs, and push faculty and staff into unsafe working conditions. It has never been more important to build strong unions by organizing and empowering rank and file members. Open bargaining - where rank and file members attend and participate in contract bargaining - is an increasingly popular strategy. It is premised on the assumption that the power of the union is not in esoteric expertise behind closed doors but in its membership.