As an effort to unionize student workers at the University of Oregon gains momentum, some organizers allege they’ve been targeted by their supervisors for working on the campaign.
Students launched a unionization effort in fall term in an attempt to unite student tutors, daycare workers, residence hall advisers and other student workers across campus to fight for pay raises, a shorter pay period, anti-harassment policies and more.
Organizers estimate that some 3,000 students work on campus. They’ll need buy-in from just over half to get union efforts off the ground.
As of Thursday, organizers say, 1,300 students had signed union cards signaling their support.
“Students have known for a very long time that our conditions aren’t okay, that our wages aren’t okay and that we’re being mistreated,” said Elizabeth White, a senior and union organizer who works in a campus dining hall.
As students near the culmination of their card-collecting campaign, they’ve seen “union busting incidents becoming more frequent and severe,” organizers said in a news release.
Earlier this week, sophomore organizer Will Garrahan filed a complaint against the University of Oregon with the state Employment Relations Board, alleging he’d been unfairly fired from his job in a campus dining hall because of his work as a union organizer.
Garrahan’s supervisors fired him on Feb. 11, he says, and told him it was because he’d eaten food on the job without paying nearly two weeks earlier. Garrahan argues it’s standard among food service workers to eat free food, which he did shortly before leftovers were composted at the end of the night, and that he’d never been disciplined for that behavior before. He thinks the firing was instead motivated by an article published in The Nation Magazine on Feb. 10, which quoted Garrahan as a student union organizer.
University spokeswoman Kay Jarvis said that Garrahan was fired for cause, “wholly unrelated to any union activity.”
“We strive to provide a positive employee experience for all, including our student workers, and make a concerted effort to address employee needs through collaboration,” Jarvis said in an email, and that students can go through the Office of Student Advocacy for help resolving employment issues.
The university does not take a position on union efforts, Jarvis said.
University of Oregon students march on campus in support of Will Garrahan, a student who says he was fired from his campus job for being a union advocate. The school says Garrahan was fired for cause wholly unrelated to the union efforts.Courtesy Elizabeth White
Dozens of students staged a march on campus, Friday, demanding Garrahan be rehired. “Union-busting is disgusting,” they chanted as they walked from the Global Scholars Hall, where Garrahan had worked, to the university housing office.
Other students have been told they can’t wear union-promoting pins or discuss the union while they work, White said. Organizer Ella Meloy said that union organizers have also been told they can’t speak to academic classes or promote card signing at some campus events because it’s been labeled political activity.
If student organizers get the campaign off the ground, they think they’ll be the largest undergraduate student union in a growing national trend. Students at Ohio’s Kenyon College staged a strike in May in an effort to get their student union recognized, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported, following successful union campaigns at Grinnell College, Dartmouth and Wesleyan University.
“I think they’re definitely the first in Oregon and one of the first in the country,” Nick Keogh, legislative director for the Oregon Student Association, said of the aspiring University of Oregon undergraduate union. “It’s pretty historic.”
Organizers are still fuzzy on their plans for a governance structure that would last as student workers cycle in and out of the university. Without funds, they’re crowd-sourcing on GoFundMe for money that will, among other things, help them hire a lawyer if they need one to advance Garrahan’s labor complaint.
Student organizers say their biggest concern is shortening the pay period for students working on campus. Right now, students get paid at the end of the month, Garrahan said, and if a student starts at an odd time in the pay cycle they sometimes have to wait more than 40 days for their first paycheck – something students allege violates a state law requiring employees to get paid within 35 days.
“The month-long pay period is really slow. Especially if you’re a student, you have to pay rent, and you might not be the best at money management. It is a lot of time,” he said.
Organizers also hope to make sure students get their allocated breaks, are paid on time and earn higher wages. Student pay starts at Lane County’s $13.50 minimum wage, according to a salary scale published by the university.
Student workers at the University of Oregon march to protest the firing of union organizer Will Garrahan, a sophomore who says he was terminated for campaigning for a student worker union. The school says Garrahan was fired for reasons unrelated to union activities.Photo courtesy of Elizabeth White
“Students are just really financially struggling,” White said. Some 36% of UO students experienced food insecurity the university said in 2020, a rate that was higher among students of color.
Meloy used to work at the food pantry on the University of Oregon campus. She’d see hundreds of students a day coming in to get free food because they couldn’t afford it otherwise – including students working on-campus jobs, she said.
“That made me start to realize that there was a way bigger problem, structurally, with the way the university allocates resources to their most vulnerable students,” Meloy said. “And also the way they pay their workers is extremely low, especially in comparison to other places in Eugene.”
And some students don’t have a choice but to work on campus, White said. Many low-income students get work study funding as part of their financial aid packages, and international students are often restricted to work on campus under their student visa.
“It is a very vulnerable population that is being forced into these low income jobs that are treating us very poorly,” White said. “We aren’t all just choosing to be here.”
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Sami Edge covers higher education for The Oregonian. You can reach her at sedge@oregonian.com or (503) 260-3430.
