Undergraduate student employees are increasingly following the decade-old path of their graduate brethren in forming labor unions to secure higher pay and better benefits at their colleges and universities.
The board of trustees at California State University, which oversees 23 campuses, heard on May 21 from two undergraduate union leaders proposing a collective bargaining agreement.
Officials at the University of Oregon in Eugene have said they are “ready to begin negotiations” with the school’s newly formed undergraduate student workers union.
Efforts to redefine Starbucks workers at campus dining halls, graduate teaching assistants and NCAA athletes as “university employees” have inspired the undergraduate efforts, experts in student labor say.
“When conditions are not satisfactory, workers might be compelled to organize, especially when they see union successes in other workplaces and when they get support from either a national union or from other unionized workers on campus,” said Tim Cain, a University of Georgia professor of higher education.
Graduate student labor unions have surged since 2014 to more than 150 at public and private colleges nationwide. In 2016, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate assistants at Columbia University, an Ivy League institution, were college employees who could unionize.
The NLRB ruled in 2016 that undergraduate student dining workers at private Grinnell College were employees with bargaining rights. Unions have since expanded on public campuses as well.
“We’ve seen our parents suffer through the recession, we see how corporations keep making record profits while laying off thousands, and we see how the people in power continue to blame us for our poverty when we’re impoverished because of their greed,” said Azure Starr, a fifth-year transfer student at California State University in Chico.
“We’re tired of the fact that nothing’s changed, and we’re determined to do something to fix it,” said Mr. Starr, a member of the bargaining team for the California State University Employees Union.
Officials in Kentucky and Colorado oppose undergraduate labor unions, and higher education experts question their staying power.
“Usually, we think unionization is successful if there is an ability to coordinate easily and give a credible threat to management of strike if demands are not met,” said Mike Kofoed, a higher education economist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “I am skeptical that this could work with undergraduates because most of their work is semester-by-semester, and their goal isn’t necessarily to create a career out of campus work.”
Advocates point to several recent labor wins on college campuses.
Nearly 20,000 student food service, support staff and residence hall assistants in the Cal State system have joined CSUEU, which concluded elections in February. It has quickly become the nation’s largest undergraduate labor union.
A Cal State spokesperson confirmed last week that two union members spoke during public comment at the board meeting and that trustees “formally received the bargaining proposals.”
Writing to The Times, a union spokesperson called it “the first official step of negotiations” and said the next step would be agreeing to bargaining dates.
“The CSU respects the decision of student assistants to form a union and looks forward to engaging with them as we do with our other union partners,” the Cal State spokesperson said in an email.
CSUEU President Catherine Hutchinson said Cal State exploits undergraduates by treating them differently from full-time employees.
In California, most undergraduate student assistants earn just over the state hourly minimum wage of $16 for working 10 to 20 hours weekly. Union members say that is insufficient to cover record-high inflation in housing, food and tuition costs over the past few years.
“For decades, CSU management treated student assistants as a cheap labor pool, paying them minimum wage and with no benefits, even though they perform similar work as union staff,” said Ms. Hutchinson,” a Cal State Channel Islands biology technician and former undergraduate lab assistant.
In November, the Oregon Employment Relations Board certified the unionization of undergraduate student assistants at the University of Oregon.
That move followed a 2022 vote by campus Starbucks employees that unionized some undergraduate workers.
“The University of Oregon values the contributions made by student employees,” the school said in a statement emailed to The Times. “We remain committed to providing our students with valuable work experience and financial assistance through part-time employment while they pursue higher education.”
Undergraduate unions have reached private campuses as well.
In February, the NLRB ruled that basketball players at Dartmouth College could unionize as employees of the Ivy League campus.
William Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York City, said tuition increases and a “massive growth in economic and wealth inequality” since 1980 have driven the trend. He said President Biden’s pledge to lead “the most pro-union administration in American history” has also played a role.
“President Biden’s use of the bully pulpit to advocate for the rights of workers is helping to inspire labor organizing drives both on and off campuses,” Mr. Herbert said.
Meanwhile, conservatives and moderate Democrats have opposed efforts to organize undergraduates.
In the Colorado General Assembly, a 2022 bill that would have extended bargaining rights to undergraduates and a wider pool of public employees foundered during closed-door negotiations. Ultimately, the bill signed by Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, added only county workers to union rolls.
Paul Lundeen, Republican minority leader of the state Senate and a former chair of the Colorado State Board of Education, said the proposal failed because of “broad political opposition.”
“If the idea is not dead now, it’s hiding in a corner,” Mr. Lundeen told The Times. “The idea that you would try to unionize undergraduates for a moment in time before they disperse into different professions is idiotic.”
Elsewhere, the NLRB heard this month from Berea College students looking to form a labor union on their private campus in Kentucky.
All 1,300 undergraduates at the federally recognized “work college” put in 10 hours on campus weekly as part of a mandatory work-study program. Berea administrators have asked the NLRB to block their unionization effort, calling it an “existential threat” to the school’s financial sustainability.
Higher education watchers say undergraduate labor unions add financial pressure to universities struggling with decades of enrollment and revenue declines to merge campuses, cut staff or reduce services.
“Anything that increases operational complexity or labor costs increases the risk of negative financial pressures,” said Gary Stocker, a former chief of staff at private Westminster College in Missouri and founder of College Viability, which evaluates campuses’ financial stability. “While public colleges are unlikely to close, they are already engaged in widespread layoffs and cutbacks, just like private colleges.”
Reached for comment, several higher education consultants and advocacy groups were divided on the potential impact of undergraduate unions.
“The idea of college students unionizing is absurd,” said Michael Warder, a California-based nonprofit consultant and former vice chancellor at private Pepperdine University. “What’s next? Children unionizing to deal with parents?”
Steven Bloom, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, said the group does not oppose undergraduate labor unions in principle but treating students like employees in collective bargaining negotiations “can be problematic since student workers are students first.”
“These potential agreements can create challenges in the student-institution relationship, given that the relationship is built on an educational model, not an employment model,” Mr. Bloom said.
Labor union expansions could cause more financial problems than they solve for undergraduate student workers, said Peter Wood, president of the conservative National Association of Scholars.
“They will tap institutions that have falling enrollments, reduced needs for services and no resources to significantly increase student wages,” said Mr. Wood, a former associate provost at public Boston University. “Where they succeed in raising wages, those positions will become attractive to non-students and create more competition.”
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