Another university has fallen to the unionization wave on campuses: undergraduate workers at California State University have filed for a union election, in a fight to win what is almost certain to be the United States's largest undergraduate union. It is unclear just how many people would be covered by the union, but the answer is a lot either way. The California State University Employees Union (CSUEU), which students are seeking to affiliate with, estimates around 10,000; the university has put forward claims of 13,000 to 17,000 or more. In either case more than 4,000 workers have signed union cards, which have just been filed with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to start the election process–an astonishingly large bargaining unit by any metric. By the union's count or the low-end estimate by Cal State, they appear to have the 30% of signatures needed to get the process rolling.
Efforts to begin unionization at Cal State actually began in 2021 when CSUEU filed with PERB to have student assistants added to its existing bargaining units. But Cal State pushed back heavily: a lawyer representing the university in the case notably argued “The Student Assistants’ primary role is that of a student and not a traditional employee,” which appears to be the position of the University and an argument from them as to why students cannot unionize. PERB hearings on this matter have been mired in quicksand ever since, and so slow moving that that hearings only just began in March and will continue in June. CSUEU has said that they are still pursuing this option if possible. As is, however, it would appear that they have the necessary signatures to trigger a union election and that this is the best way forward–although the university will also presumably challenge this.
Certainly, the sentiment is there for a strike on the ground, at least among some undergraduate students. Problems are numerous and at times comical. One such example: as a state entity CSU preempts local minimum wage ordinances, so a student in San Diego can be paid $15.50 and not the city's minimum wage wage of $16.30. Cal State undergraduate workers–particularly at the campuses in high cost-of-living areas–are therefore often paid less than their local minimum wage, an unhappy fact that many have learned from their paychecks. Another: except when on break, students are capped at 20 hours of work a week–because top wages for student assistants are around $23.50, in practice an undergraduate worker can only make $470 a week at most. To say the least, this is comically insufficient in most of California.
In a Sacramento Bee article that came out on Sunday (April 16), you can feel the unhappiness with the state of affairs. One student, Rodriquez, takes in the minimum of $310 a week, and he has this to say:
“It’s ridiculous that universities impose this 20-hour limit on their students,” he said. “I’m making significantly less compared to what I used to be able to make.” Prior to this semester, Rodriquez had been commuting back to Madera on the weekends to continue working at McDonald’s. He would work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then drive back and work his on-campus jobs in Sacramento during the week while also juggling classes. “If I didn’t have that other job,” he said, “I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford rent.”
Predictably, many students also report working more than 20 hours a week because of the nature of their duties. Because they have no benefits, sick days are catastrophic (and often the work must be made up later) and lead to students having to choose between eating, taking on debt, or going to work sick. It's a very bad state of affairs, and one which unionization is obviously in a position to change. Watch this space.