The demands that unions for Rutgers University's striking faculty are making focus on their most vulnerable members — including graduate students who make $30,000 a year, and part-time lecturers with no long-term contracts.

Professor Joshua Freeman of the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies says that's a strong statement of solidarity among three separate unions, all supporting each other's demands. He says there's a growing trend of activism and labor organizing, significantly among young people and significantly among academics. 

For years, he said, institutions of higher education have made heavy use of contingent labor, and paid those staffers poorly — and those in academia are seeing an avenue to push back.