Posts tagged undergraduates
The Newest Union Members Are Undergrads
December 20, 2023 // With help from groups like the Service Employees International Union and the Office and Professional Employees International Union, students consolidated support for elections, contract talks and headline-making protests. Their muscle has surprised longtime observers of the labor movement, some of whom have wondered where, exactly, young adults learned some of the finer points of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. (Part of the answer: Instagram direct messages with organizers on other campuses.)
Harvard Undergraduate Employees Launch Unionization Effort
February 14, 2023 // The University’s graduate student union represents graduate student employees and undergraduates who work as teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and course assistants, but other undergraduate employees are currently without union representation. HUWU’s start also coincides with the launch of Harvard Academic Workers-United Automobile Workers, which started a card drive to form a non-tenure-track faculty union Monday. ADVERTISEMENT Workers who want to form a union can sign authorization cards to prompt either a union election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board or voluntary union recognition by Harvard.
Inside the Campaign to Unionize the University of Oregon
February 13, 2023 // Student workers at the University of Oregon are trying to build a wall-to-wall union—uniting their resident assistants, dining hall staff, and all other undergraduate workers in a massive labor campaign. Over the last few years, interest in labor organizing has surged among young people, especially at colleges and universities. “Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations not better off than their parents, and the way that money has been flowing to the people at the top while becoming more and more scarce for the people at the bottom is hard to watch,” said Carolyn Roderique, a junior resident assistant at the University of Oregon. “It will become unlivable if we don’t do something about it.” So far, Kenyon College in Ohio, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Grinnell College in Iowa, Barnard College in New York and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire have all engaged in some form of labor organizing. However, those union efforts have largely taken place at small, private colleges.
Fears rise that UC strike could have long-lasting consequences on vaunted research, teaching
November 30, 2022 // “As long as this strike lasts, faculty across the system will be exercising their right to honor the picket line by refusing to conduct university labor up to and including submission of grades — labor that would not be possible without the labor of all other academic workers as well as university staff,” the faculty said in a statement. “We do this toward bettering the working and learning conditions of all students present and future.” The union is demanding significant pay increases to ease the burden of high rents in the pricey areas where UC campuses are located, along with more support for child care, parental leave, transportation, healthcare and international students. UC’s offers of wage increases don’t come close to meeting union demands but would make academic workers some of the highest paid among comparable public and private institutions, university officials say.
IU graduate student workers strike through finals; all-faculty meeting scheduled
May 6, 2022 // So far, finals week disruptions have been minimal. Carney said there are plans in place for faculty, even department chairs, to help with grading if needed.