NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
April 6, 2018 | PAGE 3
UNION ORGANIZING
At Reed College, students are unionizing
By Don McIntosh
A new union at Reed College
may have among the youngest
membership of any union in
America: On March 22, a group
of 52 resident advisors who live
and work in the dorms at Reed
College voted 34 to 14 to union-
ize as Local 1 of a newly formed
independent union, the Student
Workers Coalition. All are Reed
sophomores, juniors, and sen-
iors, and few if any are over 22.
At Reed, they’re known as
Housing Advisers, and they help
the college manage student life
in the dorms. Each housing ad-
viser is responsible for the well-
being of about 20 fellow stu-
dents and for duties that take up
three to 15 hours a week follow-
ing a week-long training. They
used to perform those services
in exchange for free room and
board, but for legal reasons, the
college reclassified them as em-
ployees starting in September
2016. That effectively resulted
in a cut to compensation be-
cause they now must pay pay-
roll tax and income tax with-
holding out of their stipend —
$13,670 gross for the current ac-
ademic year. Union supporter
Photo courtesy of Student Workers Coalition
It will be one America’s youngest
union locals.
Supporters of Reed College’s new union of residential advisors: From left,
Julia Todhunter, Zoë Gregozek, Arek Rein-Jungswirth, and Chae Park.
Zoë Gregozek says that was one
factor motivating the student
employees to unionize.
Reed College has the most
liberal student body in America,
according to the Princeton Re-
view. But the Reed administra-
tion didn’t rejoice at the news of
a union. Represented by the
Barran Liebman law firm, Reed
argued to the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB): first,
that the housing advisers were
not employees after all, but stu-
dents; and second, if they were
employees, hundreds more stu-
dent employees ought to be in
their bargaining unit.
The student union supporters
had neither money nor lawyers,
but they prevailed after a nine-
hour hearing attended by four
Reed administrators and two
lawyers. The NLRB’s Seattle re-
gional director Ronald Hooks
rejected Reed’s arguments, in
accord with NLRB’s current in-
terpretation of federal labor law.
Reed then appealed to the
NLRB to delay the election or
impound the ballots, which the
agency also rejected.
Then, leading up to the vote,
college administrators held vol-
untary “information sessions”
and sent emails to house advis-
ers warning that the collective
bargaining process might result
in their compensation “decreas-
ing,” and that having a union
could harm their relationships
with their supervisors.
“Most [housing advisers]
have close friendly relationships
with their resident directors, so
that was a scare tactic,” Gre-
gorek said.
Administrators also appealed
to their altruism, asking them to
think about the new crop of
housing advisers who will begin
in September — who wouldn’t
get to have a say about whether
to have a union. That’s quite a
nervy argument from a college
that rejected the housing advi-
sors’ request for voluntary
recognition last October — ac-
companied by signed authoriza-
tion cards from more than two-
thirds of the group — and
insisted on the delay of a secret
ballot election, trying to post-
pone it still more with legal ma-
neuvers.
Up to now, except for janitors
represented by SEIU Local 49,
no other Reed College workers
have been union-represented.
Student Workers Coalition
spokesperson Seth Douglas says
the housing advisers campaign
is only the first of what is seen
as a larger campus-wide effort
to unionize student workers.
It’s also a response to worsen-
ing circumstances. Tuition has
risen from about $36,000 a year
a decade ago to $54,200 this
year. While some of the col-
lege’s 1,400 students receive fi-
nancial aid, it’s not uncommon
for students to graduate heavily
in debt.
Students who voted to union-
ize are hoping to win improved
compensation, the security of
“just cause” discipline and a
contract that the administration
can’t unilaterally change, an end
to seemingly arbitrary discipli-
nary practices, and the basic
union right to have a co-worker
present during disciplinary
meetings.
Will Reed accept the union
vote result and get busy negoti-
ating an agreement? Kevin My-
ers, Reed College communica-
tions director, said Reed
administration will wait for the
vote count to be officially certi-
fied by the NLRB before mak-
ing any comment.
CULTURE
I am 2018: AFSCME
remembers MLK
Raymond Thomas
Cynthia Newton
Melissa Haggerty
James Coon
Chris Frost
Sydney Montanaro
Beware of “nurse
case managers”
in a workers’
compensation
claim. You do not
have to allow a nurse
case manager to
accompany you to
your doctor’s
appointments.
820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200,
Portland, OR 97204
Scott Sell
Chris Thomas
www.tcnf.legal
It’s now been 50 years since
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot
and killed in Memphis, Ten-
nessee, where he’d come to sup-
port a strike by 1,300 AFSCME-
represented sanitation workers.
This spring, to honor King and
carry forward his agenda of
racial and economic justice, AF-
SCME joined with the Church
of God in Christ to launch a
campaign called I AM 2018.
The campaign’s name comes
from the iconic “I am a man”
placards worn by the strikers as
a way to assert their basic dig-
nity as human beings.
The campaign began with a
nationwide moment of silence
Feb. 1 to remember the sanita-
tion workers whose death in
Memphis precipitated the strike.
Echol Cole and Robert Walker
sought refuge from a storm in
the back of their garbage truck.
Faulty equipment led to the
truck’s compactor kicking in,
crushing them to death.
The overwhelmingly black
workforce struck for two
months demanding union recog-
nition, drawing support from
AFSCME’s national leadership
and allies including King, who
marched in solidarity. On the
evening of April 3 at the historic
Mason Temple, the Church of
God in Christ (COGIC) Interna-
tional Headquarters, Dr. King
delivered his famous “Moun-
taintop” speech. He was shot the
following day, April 4.
This year, on April 2 and 3,
AFSCME and the Church of
God in Christ sponsored a series
of events, speakers and perform-
ances in Memphis. And on April
4, they marched from the AF-
SCME Local 1733 hall to Ma-
son Temple where they held a
concert and rally for justice.
Four Oregon AFSCME leaders
were there: executive director
Stacy Chamberlain, AFSCME
Local 88 president Percy Win-
ters, Jr. and vice president Ray-
mond De Silva, and Oregon AF-
SCME staff representative
Micaela Shapiro-Shellaby.