Twenty-hour work weeks, building-wide nightly tours, emergency and crisis management, one-on-one counseling sessions, and reams of paperwork barely scratch the list of responsibilities required of resident assistants (RAs) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
During a recent discussion about the duties the job requires compared to the compensation offered, the school's RAs voiced their dissatisfaction. And earlier this month, the RAs took steps to form the first undergraduate labor union.
Moves toward unionizing arose from a series of complaints against the UMass residential life system. The RAs are calling for adequate compensation, protection from arbitrary termination, an end to their contract's "open-ended clause," and equitable duties across clusters (sets of residences).
UMass says its RAs receive an ample $137 a week. But the RAs claim they receive only $50 per week, or $2.50 an hour for 20-hour work weeks, which is significantly below the state minimum wage of $6.75.
"It is difficult to quantify the RA job... some might say it can never be fully compensated," said Bob Clark, assistant director of Tufts Residential Life.
UMass administrators were unavaible to offer further comments, and UMass News Director Barbara Pitoniak refered reporters to a statement released last week by UMass Chancellor David Scott.
"The administration does not support the effort to unionize, and will follow established procedures expressing our position on the petition for recognition to the state Labor Relations Commission," the press release stated.
UMass has also declined to sign a neutrality agreement, which would block the university from engaging in an anti-union campaign. According to the UMass RAs, the assumption is that the institution plans to enjoin them from joining the union.
Serious union talks were organized last spring when then-senior and three-year RA Gregory Essopos wrote a senior thesis regarding the RA system.
"The results were staggering," said David Synnot, an RA and advocate for the union. He called the document "the boiling point" that acted as the impetus to motivate RAs to unionize.
At UMass, 12 to 24 RAs work in each cluster, which consist of one to three buildings. Every night there are two RAs on duty and three RAs on weekends (at Tufts, only one RA is on duty on any given night). On-duty RA responsibilities include patrolling each floor and each building to survey the residential area and confront party situations.
"It seems most partying happens in the halls [at UMass]. We don't necessarily need [more than one RA on duty]... most partying happens elsewhere," Clark said of Tufts.
In response to growing unrest among UMass RAs, an RA Grievance Committee was formed last semester to address specific concerns and sought to protect RAs from unfair termination and to ensure due process.
"It was futile and passive," RA Council Co-Chair Asif Sayani said of the committee. Sayani claimed that Res Life management did not respond effectively to the council's recommendations.
Although this movement is the first in the undergraduate domain, a precedence of unionization exists with graduate students. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union deals with 30 different graduate student bargaining units nationwide. The UMass graduate students unionized and formed the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) 11 years ago, and now enjoy full medical and dental coverage, child care support, and eligibility for tuition waivers.
Taking the lead from the graduate students, a majority of the 364 UMass RAs signed a petition to unionize early this month, which was then filed with the Massachsetts Labor Relations Board (MLRB) and the University. UMass had the option to either recognize the RAs as a union and proceed with contract negotiations or fight the petition with the MLRB - it chose the latter.
If a renegotiated contract is signed by the RAs, they will begin paying union dues. These payments will cover various expenses, such as attorney fees, incurred by the union. Since UMass is a state university, the school's anti-union expense will be derived from tuition dollars, which may inflame the issue if costs add up.
The MLRB will convene with UMass representatives, UAW union organizers, and RA witnesses on May 30 to decide the legitimacy of the union.
UAW organizer Tim Scott is confident that the MLRB will decide in their favor. "The RAs' leverage is strength in numbers.... The university works because they do," he said.
"From a risk management perspective, what RAs do is so important to the University," Clark said. "RAs are the ones to help identify students who need help. Without that staff, the University wouldn't be serving the educational function."
In the event that the MLRB decides against the legitimacy of the union, the RAs still have other options, including going on strike. Incidentially, this is the bargaining tactic the graduate students chose when they initially began union talks. After the graduate students went on strike, the University responded quickly and recognized the union.
The writer is an RA at Tufts.
