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St. Cloud State University
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Students push workers union
By Mike Lauterbach
Published:
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Right now a union for SCSU student workers exists, but only in the mind of Tomoo Inoue.
He’d like to see that change.
Inoue is the chair of Student Government’s Campus Affairs Committee. Tonight, he will introduce two different proposals for student workers’ unions to Student Government.
“We received some issues student workers have had,” Inoue said.
When his committee discussed those complaints, he said, they settled on a union as a way to help those workers resolve their grievances.
The details of any union are still up in the air, as well as who would be included. In one of the proposals, according to Inoue, the union would represent workers who work directly for the university — lab assistants, tutors, and so on. The other proposal would include those students, as well as students who work for third parties on campus, most notably Aramark.
But the process is still at a very early stage.
“Right now,” Inoue said, “we’re in the process of talking to lawyers and employees (about the project).”
If the project does go forward, it could be the first union for undergraduate student workers anywhere.
The Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions, a loose-knit organization of graduate student unions, lists 22 recognized unions for academic workers, including four — the University of Wisconsin, UW–Milwaukee, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University – in the Midwest. The list also includes more than a dozen more unrecognized unions.
But those unions represent graduate students who work as TAs, tutors and other academic jobs. None of them represent undergraduate, part-time student employees.
And all of those unions fought an uphill battle to be recognized. It took SAGE, a coalition of University of California graduate students, 17 years and a strike before their union was officially recognized.
“What the other side has on its side is time,” said Andrew Larkin, economics professor and president of the Faculty Association. “Say you start working on a union in your third year. The administration knows if they drag it out for two more years (you’re going to be gone).”
But he said that forming a union would certainly be possible with enough work.
“(The organizers) are going to need hard work and long hours,” he said. “They’re going to eat a lot of pizza and drink a lot of Coke.”
However, Larkin said any union organizers are not going to receive much personal benefit from it.
“The first baseball players to unionize back in the 1970s never got their jobs back,” he said. “But all baseball players since (have benefited).”
Jeni Carey, a junior and Communication Studies major who works at the Campus Mart, said that she would support a union if she thought she could get better wages and benefits. But she was concerned that she might not be included because Campus Mart is not owned by SCSU.
“I would think it should (include) all students,” she said. “People who don’t work for the university need it more.”
She said that Inoue had come down to the Campus Mart earlier in the week and asked for her input on the proposals.
The decision on whether students like Carey would be included in any union might be made at the Student Government meeting tonight.
But Inoue said he is taking the process one step at a time. And the first step?
“We need to get as much attention as possible.”
