My name is Nick and I am a student worker and organizer reaching out from Clark University in Worcester, MA. I am writing because my fellow student workers and I are going on a 24-hour strike, starting on Thursday, March 13 because of the Clark University Administration’s mistreatment and disrespect of their student workers who make the campus function. We pick up the trash, salt the sidewalks in winter, run the library, are teaching assistants, office assistants and handle big admissions events like Destination Clark (Clark University’s Accepted Students Day). Clark University has been advertising on campus jobs as being compensated below Massachusetts minimum wage, not giving students in groundskeeping safe working conditions and has promised students on work study the opportunity to access that money despite many students on work study across classes still not being able to get an on campus job to access that essential aid.
A little bit of background: back on February 14, the Clark University Undergraduate Workers Union, submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election to become a union and have an actual voice at the bargaining table. This was after approximately three months of having meetings with our fellow student workers and Teamsters representatives. In response, Clark explicitly expressed their intent to use our petition to overturn the NLRB decision – Columbia University, 364 NLRB No. 90 (2016). This decision gave graduate and undergraduate students the right to unionize and Clark was banking on using an anti-union Trump-era NLRB to overturn this ruling, subsequently leaving tens of thousands of student workers without the right to collectively bargain for better working conditions at their institutions.
Due to this threat from Clark, we decided to withdraw our petition and started a campaign to strike for a card check neutrality agreement between the Clark University administration and Clark Undergraduate workers. If a majority of workers in our proposed bargaining unit have signed cards, then Clark University would have to recognize the Clark University Undergraduate Union, reinstate workers if they fired any during the 24-hour strike, and start contract negotiations.
To strike, we held a vote on March 11, and 319 student workers cast their vote. Of those 319 ballots, 249 (78%) workers voted for a strike on March 13. Along with safe working conditions, jobs advertised for at least minimum wage and promises of work study being fulfilled, were also striking for Clark to respect the work that we do as real work. Since we have started the unionization process with Clark, they have maintained their position that because we are students, we are ineligible to collectively bargain and incessantly cite San Francisco Art Institute 226 NLRB 1251 (1976). This decision was overturned by Columbia (2016), Clark administration is trying to be at the forefront of stripping the rights of student workers across the country.
