It's Time to Unionize Student Workers

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It's Time to Unionize Student Workers

If you belong to a labor union, study unions for a living, or are broadly supportive of the role unions play in making capitalist societies fairer, more democratic places to live, you quickly learn the limits of contemporary liberalism's commitment to progressive causes. Individual rights, equality, a voice in the decisions that shape one's life, are all championed for every imaginable identity group, but stop at the factory gates, and the office doors.

People like me, who support the right of groups of workers to act collectively to remedy some of the injustices in the workplace, are therefore used to the outlaw status of labor unions, and their mysterious disappearance from the list of progressive causes supported by students and liberal institutions like colleges and universities. Still, even I was shocked by the mean-spiritedness, insensitivity, and plain stupidity displayed by the university newspaper editorial on student-worker organizing, and many of the students interviewed on the subject. Imagine if a protest against a racial or homophobic slur was described as "amusing" and protesters were invited to "collectively suck my dick."

Much of the objection to this organizing drive appears to come from the belief that students are just playing at work, that they don't really need the money, that, ultimately, being a student is incompatible with being a worker. There is an interesting parallel with the argument, still around, though it was more popular a century ago, that we don't need to pay women as much as men because men are the primary breadwinners, and women just use what they earn as "pin money," a little extra for recreation and entertainment, not necessary to live on. This was ludicrous then, and it is equally ludicrous for State students today. One of my advisees was unable to register for a workable course schedule next semester because she is working three jobs. She is working three jobs because she can't stay at State without the money, and because all the State jobs pay around the minimum wage, so you have to work many more hours to earn enough to live on. A casual glance at the financial aid figures makes it clear that students work here because they need to, not just to make a little extra. Higher wages would mean fewer hours worked, more time to study, and better retention rates.

By the way, by the university newspaper editorial suggested that the top level of wages paid to students is so generous that students can earn close to as much as their parents if they work long hours.

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