Occidental College Undergrad Workers Go Union

Occidental College student workers have voted to join SEIU Local 721, allowing approximately 1,000 undergraduate workers — baristas, resident advisers, tutors, translators, lifeguards, and researchers among them — to collectively bargain with the private liberal arts college in northeast Los Angeles. SEIU announced the results of the April election on June 12, revealing that 85% of voters chose the union, though it declined to share specific numbers. The election created two new bargaining units, and will make nearly half of the student body into union workers once a contract is signed. (Disclosure: SEIU is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

Casey Scott, a rising sophomore whose campus job includes calling alumni to solicit donations, said a raise would help him cover food and incidentals. He also hopes it will make the college “more democratic for student workers who are integral to how campus works,” and help students who depend on their wages for survival.
 

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Students launched the effort last fall under the name Rising Occidental Student Employees (ROSE). They sought an end to the college’s earnings cap for student workers, as well as higher wages and job security. Campus wages are tied to Los Angeles’ minimum wage of $16.78, and set at a maximum of 10 hours a week. Students said it was too little to cover incidental expenses in pricey Los Angeles — let alone make a dent in tuition, room and board, which run $85,000 a year before financial aid.

Occidental has indicated it will respect the election results. In an emailed statement, Rachael Warecki, a spokesperson for Occidental, said the college “continues to support student workers’ decisions and will work with the Union to begin negotiations regarding the terms and conditions of student employment, with the goal of reaching a collective bargaining agreement.” 

ROSE plans to set contract priorities after conducting a bargaining survey of student workers when classes resume in September, and hopes to begin negotiations soon thereafter. An agreement might not happen right away. A 2018 study found that 63% of all new unions did not reach a contract within their first year.

As Capital & Main has previously reported, the new union comes amid high support for unions among younger Americans, and increasing unionization among undergraduate students. Nearly 90% of Americans under 30 years old now view labor unions favorably, a new high, according to a poll released last year by the AFL-CIO. Since 2021, at least 31 campuses have added undergraduate student worker unions, according to a 2023 report by the City College of New York. In February, roughly 20,000 undergraduate student workers across the California State University system voted to join the CSU Employees Union, more than doubling its size.

Organizing among higher ed students at all levels has increased rapidly since the 2020 pandemic, said William A. Herbert, a contributor to the CUNY report and executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College. Herbert noted that prior to the pandemic there were only two undergraduate-only bargaining units, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at Grinnell, and that more than 90% of newly unionized student workers are graduate students. “The wave of undergraduate student employee unionization has followed similar unionization waves among nontenure track faculty and graduate assistants over the past decade,” he said. 

Even with financial aid, Sunari Weaver-Anderson depended on her campus jobs to cover living expenses, including transportation and food. “I was on full scholarship until my senior year, at which point my income and savings needed to stretch to tuition, room and board,” Weaver-Anderson told Capital & Main. At one on-campus job, she worked more than 10 hours a week but was paid for only 10 because of the cap. To make ends meet, she started an additional job, as an on-campus barista. “I needed [these jobs] to survive,” she said. 

Because she just graduated, Weaver-Anderson said the vote was bittersweet. “I won’t benefit [from the union], but I was inspired by the process and glad I could create something that will last beyond my time there.”

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