Undergraduates across the country are unionizing college workforces

He drive amazon syndicationStarbucks and other large U.S. companies are expanding into another industry that has historically resisted workers ’efforts to get organized: American universities.

Students working as residential counselors, assistant professors, and campus canteens come together to demand better wages and working conditions, as well as push more broadly for a seat at the table to establish policies that affect their lives.

“We’re definitely seeing a big change in the way the nationwide workforce works right now,” Katherine Crawford, a 22-year-old from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Student work is a real job, despite the fact that we are full-time students and part-time workers,” said Crawford, who has held up to three simultaneous jobs on campus while attending Kenyon.

“I’m managing some of the biggest investments the university has, but they pay me the minimum wage to do it,” Crawford said of his work moving expensive pieces of art to Kenyon’s Gund Gallery. “People deserve to be paid more than $ 9.30 an hour,” he added about Ohio’s minimum wage.

Kenyon pays student workers between $ 9.30 and $ 11.94 an hour.

Colleges and universities in the United States have long employed undergraduate students to keep campus canteens and dormitories running, but until recently attempts to organize have been few and far between.

Public universities are governed by state law, while private universities are covered by the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB determined in 2016 that private university students have the right to form a union, although the board’s interpretation of labor rules may change drastically depending on the responsible political party, John Logan, professor and director of Labor and Labor Studies at San. Francisco State University told CBS MoneyWatch in an email.

“Employee / student status of student employees has changed several times according to what they call ‘political swing’ or ‘pendulum swing’ in the NLRB, and is not yet recorded, so to speak. somehow. A future Republican NLRB could reinvest it, “Logan wrote.

Pandemic payment

As with organizing efforts at Amazon and Starbucksthe the pandemic helped revive it organizing efforts on some campuses. The spread of the virus meant that student community counselors, Kenyon’s equivalent of what other schools call residential counselors, had to act as a “miniature campus security officer,” said Crawford, a student worker since first year and CA for two years.

RAs at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, found their roles similarly transformed by the pandemic.

“I would say that COVID, as with so many other problems, brought so many things to light. Especially with the RAs, we had no control over residential policies, but we had to enforce them,” said Violet Daar, a young woman from 22 years old. and Wesleyan.

Having to make sure that COVID-19 security protocols are followed, such as allowing only two bedroom residents to sit in a common space, goes beyond “our training and pay qualification.” Daar added.

Kenyon in 2020 rejected an application to voluntarily recognize a union of grade workers. The small liberal arts university is now the scene of one of the most controversial clashes.

“Our decision is rooted in our belief that the fundamental relationship we have with students is educational and that campus work exists to promote this education and make it affordable for students with different incomes. This is not the model. which is in traditional jobs, “the university said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

Kenyon said in January that it would move to a payment system from its community advisors instead of salaries. The change represents an effort to declassify them as employees with the right to minimum wages and other rights under the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the Organizing Committee of Student Workers. Kenyon o KSWOC.

In response, most Kenyon community counselors and dozens of teaching assistants quit their jobs this week to protest what they call unfair university internships.

Kenyon said he would continue to operate normally amidst the work stoppage and respected the right of students to protest. “Kenyon has not been involved in any unfair employment practices. We have repeatedly stated that switching to a scholarship payment method does not change the university’s relationship with CAs,” a spokesman said in an email. CAs will have a salary increase when they move to a stipend, he noted.

“Kenyon is the only university that is fighting against us to this degree. his students, “he said. Lynn Butzlaff, a 22-year-old who works as a residential student farm and as an assistant German teacher.

KWOC’s petition for a campus-wide undergraduate union is “unprecedented and raises important legal issues,” according to Kenyon, who said he “sought appropriate legal guidance.” According to the school, the NLRB dismissed two charges of unfair internships filed against the university last year.

In other schools, the reactions of administrators to the organization of students have been diverse. Grinnell College student canteen workers in Grinnell, Iowa, formed a collective bargaining unit in 2016, but Grinnell opposed the efforts of the Grinnell Student Food Workers Union, or UGSDW, to expand. to all working students.

“While we have determined that expanding the union is not the way forward, we are proud to have supported the formation of the country’s first independent union for undergraduate students at a private university,” Grinnell said in a 2020 letter. to students, faculty and staff. .

Recently, however, Grinnell has softened his stance on what could become the country’s first college student union. The Grinnell Board of Trustees last month approved a neutrality agreement ahead of an election, to be held on an indefinite date this spring, to include all or more than 750 hourly student workers at the UGSDW.

The same scenario occurred in a faster clip at Dartmouth College, where food students in late March voted in favor of unionization. The National Labor Relations Board-certified vote came after Dartmouth refused to voluntarily recognize the Student Workers Collective.

“Dartmouth has pledged to remain neutral on whether working students should be unionized, a promise that is very rare for employers to make in unionization efforts, but which reflects Dartmouth’s position that the decision rested with students, ”said the Hanover, New Hampshire-based company. said the private school in a statement. “We respect student choice and look forward to developing a strong relationship,” said Joshua Keniston, vice president of campus services and institutional projects.

Wesleyan University confirmed its voluntary recognition in March by a union representing about 100 hardworking students, but declined further comment.

“Voluntary recognition isn’t unheard of, but it’s definitely not the norm,” Logan said.