“Never been done before,” Student Union and College tentatively agree on contract

March 25, 2024

Students attend a “Back to Bargaining Rally” outside of Joe Rosenfield `25 Center on Feb. 28. Since then, Grinnell College and the UGSDW have reached a historic tentative agreement for the first comprehensive undergraduate student worker contract in U.S. history.

In a culmination of over a year and a half of collective bargaining, Grinnell College and the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) have come to a tentative agreement that, if passed via a majority vote, would represent the first wall-to-wall — covering all student workers — undergraduate contract in U.S. history.

“It’s never been done before,” Conrad Dahm `26, UGSDW co-president, said.
The contract, not yet into effect, must first be voted on and approved by UGSDW members, with voting opening at 8 a.m. on March 25th and closing at 5 p.m. on April 4th. The College refused to comment on any of the terms of the contract, citing an inability to directly deal with individual employees covered by the Union, according to NLRA policy. The S&B took a deeper look into the tentative agreement and here’s what this contract could mean for you.

A base wage of $13.50

Under the new contract, all student workers would be paid a base wage of $13.50 with a $0.27 pay increase each academic year until the contract expires in June 2027. This represents a $0.50 increase from the current rate of $13, and a $5.25 increase from the $8.25 base wage in place when the College and Union first joined the bargaining table. Prior to the fall 2023 semester, the College independently announced that it would be increasing wages to $13 an hour.

“This whole process of students organizing, of us showing up at the table and exercising our powers as workers, has increased the financial compensation for workers immensely … It really just demonstrates the power of collective organizing and collective bargaining,” said Hannah Sweet `25, UGSDW co-president.

Options for Community Advisor compensation

Advisors will now have the option of choosing to be compensated via a cash stipend equivalent to their room grant, deposited in portions at fixed intervals throughout the academic year. This comes as an addition to the only compensation option that existed before, compensation via a room grant deducted from their billable amount to the College.

For the 2024-2025 academic year, advisors would receive a stipend or room grant equivalent to $3,938, the cost of housing for an on-campus basic room, for each semester. If implemented under the new contract, the new compensation scheme could represent an opportunity for student workers to earn a total pay that would be higher than what they would instead earn from being compensated a base wage of $13.50 for their work hours.

UGSDW opted to not pursue an hourly wage for community advisors as housing costs on campus would likely continue to increase in the coming years. “We don’t want a pay disparity between CAs,” said Sweet. “This allows for students who may have their rooms already covered by financial aid or some type of outside scholarship to still be compensated,” Sweet said.
In a recorded collective bargaining session on March 7, Mark Watts raised concerns over the proposed stipend scheme saying, “We are not paying stipends to student employees.”

“Our concerns are two-fold. One, which I don’t think would be an issue here, is that the hours worked would not add up to federal minimum wage or Iowa minimum wage … The other one was the equity issue of overpaying for work in that way,” he added.

It appears that, since then, those concerns have been resolved.

All workers protected under just cause

Under the new contract, all student workers would be protected under just cause, meaning that there would have to be a legitimate, fair reason for employers to fire or discipline workers. Also, if any student worker feels they have been unfairly disciplined or discharged, they will have access to a grievance procedure to address the issue.

In previous collective bargaining negotiations, the College had proposed to exclude academic workers from just cause protections. Many student workers on campus, such as academic tutors, have been “at-will” employees, meaning the College could fire them at any time without a clear reason. These student workers also lacked access to a grievance procedure.

“We firmly believe [just cause] is important because it ensures that student workers have workplace protections to where they cannot be fired without a legitimate reason. They have to have broken some sort of clearly defined rule. They can’t be fired at the will of the College for no legitimate reason,” Dahm said.

The tentative agreement emerges as a culmination of years of student labor activists’ and organizers’ advocacy, Sweet said. If ratified, the contract will be the first in U.S. history to apply to all undergraduate student workers at an individual institution. Other clauses in the contract include provisions to allow the Union to further and again bargain over new workplace changes in the future.

“We’ve talked to the founder of the Union who has now finished his PhD and is about to become a professor at Penn State, Cory McCartan [`19] … he told us that this movement started in 2017 to get this wall-to-wall,” Dahm said.

“This culminates in countless hours and hundreds upon hundreds of student worker activists trying time and time again to get this wall-to-wall.”

Nick El Hajj contributed reporting.