Students and faculty at some of the top universities in the US are taking action in support of low-paid workers.
Some 350 janitors, cleaners, landscapers and painters at the University of Miami went on hunger strike in support of union recognition. For two months, the university, one of the America's wealthiest, suffered the embarrassment of having images of the action broadcast on television and published in newspapers.
The strikers, who work for a private contractor, were supported by student and faculty in their bid to form a union. The dispute was settled last week after a sit-in and the hunger strike. The employees will be allowed to vote by secret ballot whether or not they want a union.
The university quickly gave the workers a pay increase, but it said the issue of a union was between them and the company for which they worked, Unicco.
Donna Shalala, the university president, was widely believed to have worked behind the scenes to force a settlement.
But the controversy at Miami is only one of an increasing number of labour flare-ups as funding cuts and other pressures force schools to do more with less.
"I think it's something you're going to see more of all over the country,"
said Martin Snyder, spokesman for the American Association of University Professors. "People are getting pretty fed up." Last month, the AAUP reported that faculty salaries rose at less than the rate of inflation for the second year in a row, but the problems affect all levels of university employees.
Jane Buck, AAUP president, and Cary Nelson, president-elect, were arrested last month during a protest to support graduate students at New York University, which refuses to recognise their right to collective bargaining.
Students at the University of Virginia occupied a campus building as part of a call for higher pay for janitors, cleaners, food workers and landscapers.
Similar disputes have hit Harvard, Stanford and Texas universities. At Georgetown University, a student hunger strike forced administrators to increase wages for non-faculty employees.
"There are a lot of issues interplaying here," Mr Snyder said. "One is a massive retreat from higher education funding from state governments. And that is joined by a new imperative from the Government to run universities like businesses. It is an imposition of a corporate model on the higher education system. They make the cuts where they can make them, and that is frequently in personnel."
But also, as in the private sector, executives are not feeling any pain. An audit found that the 100 highest-paid deans and other administrators in the University of California system helped themselves to extra pay and benefits far beyond what was allowed by university policy.
Some deans received housing allowances of more than $250,000 (£135,000) each. Another was erroneously overpaid by $130,000. Other university administrators continued to be paid after they had left their jobs.