Posts tagged Emerson College
How RAs at Emerson became the latest undergrads to unionize
January 29, 2024 // Since 2022, OPEIU Local 153 has worked with students at Wesleyan University, Barnard College, Fordham University, the University of Pennsylvania, Tufts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Swarthmore College to form unions. Since then, student unions at Wesleyan, Tufts, RPI and Barnard have all successfully ratified contracts with school officials, according to Heyne. “Last year was a particularly rough year to be an RA,” Drake Skelly, a senior at Emerson who is a member of the union’s organizing committee, told Boston.com in emailed comments. RAs are assigned certain nights where they are “on call” and must do rounds through dorm buildings at certain times to check for problems. Skelly pointed to recent changes that mandated the RAs walk another set of rounds at 2 a.m. on weekends as a sticking point. RAs asked Emerson officials to explain why the additional mandates were necessary, but college leaders denied the request for an explanation, he said.
Push to unionize at college dorms is growing
March 31, 2023 // Colleges have been a breeding ground for illness and social havoc since the pandemic began, and much of the onus has been placed on RAs, who are appointed to shepherd the well-being of an entire floor of younger students. In the past, that has typically meant hosting events, mediating roommate disputes, and perhaps guiding an overserved first-year safely to bed. For this, RAs are compensated with free or discounted housing and meal plans. But in recent semesters, and especially since schools reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic, those responsibilities have ballooned. RAs who spoke with the Globe describe being deputized as “COVID police” to enforce masking and social distance, and wrangling students whose university — or even high school — experience was stunted by lockdowns and remote learning. Several schools later assigned RAs to longer overnight “on call” shifts and additional check-ins with residents.