In April 2023, Syracuse Graduate Employees United became the newest union at Syracuse University after a successful two-year campaign organizing over 1,100 graduate students.
Now, a year later, that movement has gained steam. Hundreds of workers have attended labor rallies at Syracuse University, two new groups of workers are seeking to form their own unions, and established unions are bargaining now for new contracts.
Workers’ demands vary, but most say they’re seeking higher pay, better healthcare and more favorable sick leave policies.
Labor organizing efforts and support for unions have seen a rise in popularity since 2022.
Around 71% of Americans approve of labor unions and union petitions are being filed at higher rates than previous years, according to Gallup polling. Higher education is no different. Forty-one new student and faculty unions formed in 2022 and the first half of 2023. Seven of the 30 bargaining units formed by graduate students in 2022 and 2023 were formed in New York. However, Syracuse University does not house just student- or faculty-led unions. Unions for police officers, parking employees, and facilities workers are also present on campus.
According to Syracuse Common Councilor Pat Hogan, the growth of unionization efforts on campus can have an impact on the city as a whole.
“It is my belief that many of the people that work in these unions are city residents and these folks are the sinew and bone of the whole university,” Hogan said. “It’s embarrassing that folks have to fight so hard to get what’s due to them.”
While a 2015 Trulia study labeled Syracuse one of the most affordable cities in the country, the city has recently had one of the highest rent increases in the country with housing costs rising 39% since 2020. With housing, groceries, and transportation costs rising across the nation and within the city, more workers are willing to join unionization efforts for higher wages and better working conditions.
Alongside economic stressors influencing the rise of unionization efforts, workers also mentioned feeling inspired by watching graduate students organize last year.
“Graduate students aren’t here forever,” Tara Slater, an administrative assistant in the Maxwell School, said. “It motivated me to see how selfless they are to work that hard to create change knowing that they’re going to leave.”
According to SEIU, around 1,000 student workers in food and library service and 900 administrative staff workers are looking to join the unionized groups on campus. If they are successful, that would mean over half of Syracuse University’s nearly 6,000 benefits-eligible employees have unionized in the last year.
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Margaret Butler is one of the administrative staff workers looking to unionize. She’s been working at the university for over 20 years, initially as an associate director for the Southside Innovation Center and now as an administrative specialist for the English department.
Administrative staff at the university are currently given a 2% raise every year, a significant difference from the recent contract won by the Syracuse Graduate Employee United which included a 24% median salary increase for the next academic year.
“I’ve been told that the only way I can make over 2% is if I bid out and go to another job, but I love my job, I love the people here and I have institutional knowledge that is important to the university, ” Butler said. “And I can’t believe that that’s the only way I can make a living wage.”
In a statement, the university said it is aware of two new groups seeking to unionize and that it “recognizes and respects the rights of students, faculty, and staff to explore unionization and determine whether or not they wish to be represented by a labor union .”
While Syracuse University has made a public commitment to pay all staff workers a minimum of $16 an hour in an effort to stay competitive in the current labor market, some student workers still make less.
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Food service represents some of the lowest-paid graduate student workers on campus. Worker’s contracts show that graduate food service workers start at $15.75. Instructional assistants make $21.67 and research assistants make $18.96.
Instructional assistant and research assistant positions likely pay more because they require a more specialized skillset. Students are required to have enough expertise in a subject to be able to adequately teach or research it. However, because many of the students working in food service are in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, which has over 1,000 graduate students, instructional assistant and research assistant positions are significantly more competitive than other colleges at Syracuse University.
Because many of the student jobs at the university are designated for federal work-study students, meaning those jobs can only be taken by domestic students with demonstrated financial need, library and food service are two of the main departments that many international students find jobs through .
International graduate student workers can work a maximum of 20 hours a week. But students in food service say they’re competing with other students for hours and that, even in the moments they are scheduled to work, those hours are rarely guaranteed.
Hussain Suwasrawala, a student supervisor at Brockway Dining Hall working on his Master of Science in Engineering Management, recalled a moment last year when he received an email a week before the fall semester started saying that all shifts had been cut by half and that the students, who had already selected their shifts before the summer began would have to decide among themselves which shifts they would be keeping and which shifts they would have to give up.
“I started my summer thinking I’m going to have shifts and that I’m going to be able to work and suddenly this bomb was dropped,” Suwasrawala said.
One of the most pressing concerns that dining hall workers have is the inherently punitive nature of their work. The dining halls are the only place on campus where students operate off a point system. Points can be obtained for things like calling out of work, clocking out early or late, or switching shifts too often and students who obtain a high number of points are fired. The point system can often lead to high rates of turnover and firings.
“There have been instances where people have tried to call in sick and then they just get points for it,” Shaik Nawazish, a worker at Page Cafe and a Master of Science student in information science, said.
Nawazish and Suwasrawala both expressed that the point system was inconsistent. The five different dining halls on campus all have different sets of guidelines for points. The same mistake in one dining hall may not cost you as many points in another dining hall, and managers have discretion over how many points students are given for any particular infraction. Students with stronger relationships with their managers are less likely to get points. The amount of points a student needs to obtain before getting fired is also different for each dining hall.
“They’re constantly trying to keep us on edge and they’re not trying to be understanding,” Suwasrawala said. “I think they need to realize that the students they’re working with come from a completely different culture and society, so for them to expect that we’re going to do everything the way an American person would do is unfair.”
Adema King is one of the commercialized food service workers on campus. That means she’s a non-student worker. She works at Page Cafe as Nawazish’s supervisor.
Unlike the student workers the commercialized food service workers on campus are already unionized. King serves as the secretary for their local union, Local 200United, and she affectionately refers to the students she works with as her kids.
“My kids deserve better pay, they deserve better health benefits, they deserve better job security,” King said. “They need to know a lot of my kids are international students. And when they leave, to go see their families over breaks, they need to know that they’re going to have those jobs back when they come back. They need the benefits.”
While student workers start at $15.75 and may earn $17.10 if they’re promoted to student supervisors, their unionized counterparts start at $16.90 and that number can go up to $26 an hour as they rise in rank.
While those with Local 200United will soon be bargaining for their own contracts they have also made it a priority to show a united front with their student co-workers looking to also obtain higher wages and better protections. The union released a statement in March saying that students in library and food service do “the same work we do for less pay, fewer benefits, and limited protections” and that “it is long past time that students we work side-by-side with have the same rights we do as SU employees.”
As more university workers are exposed to the difference in treatment and pay between unionized and non-unionized employees, student workers, union organizers and faculty and staff seem confident that labor efforts on campus will be successful.
“I think people are realizing the union can get you the wage raise, and better benefits in general,” King said. “If you’re out there without the union, you’re out there alone, you fight your battles alone. And here, if you’re in union, you have the entire team of people fighting for you. And with you.”
Union elections for library and food service workers will be held on April 23 from 10 am to 7 pm and April 24 from 10 am to 3 pm.
Tags: rise organized labor Syracuse University
