Sacramento State — and the other California State University campuses — could soon be home to the largest undergraduate non-academic student worker union in American history.
Over 20,000 student assistants across the CSU system will vote on whether to join the existing CSU Employees Union. They announced Tuesday that the California Public Employee Relations Board said they had sufficient support — more than 8,500 union cards submitted — to trigger a union election, the next step in the unionizing process following their filing a petition to unionize in April.
“It is a historic announcement knowing that we might actually have a chance to possibly form the largest non-academic student worker union in the country,” Sac State third-year and student assistant Utkarsh Mehta said. “This is quite unprecedented in and of itself, and to be able to be part of those efforts, and to hear the news that this might be an actual possibility — it's just super thrilling.”
At least 35% of student assistants across the CSU had to sign union cards as a show of support in order to trigger the election, Mehta said.
Since the petition was filed, CSU Monterey Bay student worker Leah Baker said at a Tuesday press conference that “[CSU] management has done nothing but stall and delay.”
CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith told CapRadio via email that the university system is “aware of the California Public Employment Relations Board’s determination that student assistants have garnered adequate signatures to move to an election in their bid to unionize.”
“We will continue to follow the process to determine appropriate next steps,” she added.
With many students working multiple jobs — some serving as their household’s primary provider — and filling in gaps at departments on their campuses, they’re organizing to secure higher wages, paid sick time and holiday pay.
Student power in the face of CSU tuition increase, inflation
The CSU system has come under fire from students — including two systemwide organizations, Students for Quality Education and the California State Students Association — for voting to raise tuition by 6% each year over the next five years.
At Sac State, several student organizations, including the school’s student body president, signed an open letter in protest of the tuition increases prior to the vote.
While the CSU system has committed to increase the amount of financial aid it disperses by approximately one-third of the new tuition revenue, the tuition vote still happened against the backdrop of restarted student loan payments, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and inflation rising.
During the Oct. 3 press conference, Baker and Diana Perez, a Cal State Los Angeles student who works with archives in the Special Collections department, both said part of why they’re voting for the union is knowing that while student workers do vital work on their respective campuses, they aren’t paid enough.
“The financial burden of being a student assistant has been extreme,” Perez said. “I work because I have multiple responsibilities outside of school.”
Workers aren’t also provided sick pay, placing them in a dilemma that a meme on the union’s Instagram page makes light of — having to come into work sick when faced with the choice between calling out or earning money. It’s a problem not isolated to students, especially since paid sick time due to COVID-19 ended last year, and the virus continues to circulate.
“My mom and sister are both sick,” Perez added. “I'm the head of household and our sole provider. Because the CSU limits student assistants to working 20 hours a week, I've also had to work other jobs off campus. … All of this boils down to one thing. The CSU is exploiting student assistants to do union work for less.”
Mehta called the upcoming union election “the chance we have right now to get what we think should be fair for our value that we bring to a workplace.”
They also cited sick days and cost-reduced parking as issues for student assistants to bargain over, and said a union offers an opportunity for students to mitigate CSU-wide decisions like the tuition increases.
“Every student assistant in any of the campuses … I hope they take this opportunity and are able to maximize the chance that they're getting with this and bring in all of their concerns, so we can negotiate for all students as a student and all problems are represented,” they said.
When student assistants filed the petition for a union in April, Bentley-Smith also told CapRadio that “in the event student employees are formally recognized by the California Public Employment Relations Board, we look forward to engaging with them as we do with all of our other union partners.”
Workers “have had it with the status quo”
Student worker organizing at the CSU is reflective of broader undergraduate organizing across universities — both public and private alike — and a push to make academic worker voices heard.
Nearly 50,000 workers at the University of California struck for over a month last year to pressure the university into negotiating a contract that addressed fair compensation, access needs and more support for student parents, among other demands.
CSU Employee Union president Catherine Hutchinson opened up the Tuesday press conference by recounting her first job as a student assistant at CSU San Bernardino, where she said she had “no concept … that workers who were exploited could come together form a union and demand a seat at the labor table to negotiate better pay and working conditions.”
“We now live in a new era, thank goodness,” she said. “These young folks have had it with the status quo, where the employer holds all the power.”
It’s not just young workers who are organizing — unions are an intergenerational pursuit, and worker organizing is happening across writers’ rooms, hotels, restaurants, warehouses and more.
“The more of the workforce that is unionized, the better off we all are,” said Anne Luna via email. She’s a sociology professor at Sacramento State and the president of the university’s California Faculty Association chapter.
She added that with the CSU tuition increases, the state university system “would like to pit us against each other as if our demands were mutually exclusive.”
“Instead we are talking across our unions about building solidarity in the face of a top-heavy administration who has tried to force austerity on the students, staff and faculty who make the CSU run,” she said.
Luna said she’s looking forward to sharing a seat at the table with student workers if and when they officially have their union recognized to “work in solidarity to make Sac State the best possible working and learning environment for all of us.”
The California Faculty Association is also part of the Students for Quality Education Coalition, which spans multiple organizations across the CSU.
Hundreds of thousands of workers have walked out on the job just this year, with similar demands as the CSU student assistants: higher pay, better benefits like expanded sick and vacation pay and improved working conditions.
A strike could be in the CSU’s future, too — the California Faculty Association and state university system reached impasse in their negotiations in August, and some faculty members have already submitted their intent to strike if impasse continues.
The faculty union, along with the CSU Employee Union, Teamsters, the Academic Professionals of California and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, plan to hold unity events on the Sac State Library Quad from 12-1 p.m. on Oct. 10 and Oct. 17 — they held their first on Wednesday afternoon.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond also spoke in support of students’ organizing at the press conference.
“Look at what's happening outside our doors — so many employee groups in so many sectors are on strike, because people are unable to earn enough to live, to eat, to own a home, to have health care,” he said. “And so this is bigger than what our students will become.”
The date for the union election is not yet set, but CSUEU executive director Jim Philliou said at the Tuesday press conference that the CSU has until Oct. 12 to respond to PERB’s finding that student assistant support was enough to trigger an election.
“If they continue not to respond, as we’re requesting, then we would meet with PERB and CSU after that to negotiate the election specifics with the student assistants,” he said.
He said he anticipates an election in early January if that’s the case.
Baker, the CSU Monterey Bay student, graduates this year and won’t directly benefit from having the union. But she said she’s still looking forward to voting for a union: “It will make it [the CSU] better for every student assistant who comes after me.”
Editor’s note: CapRadio is licensed to Sacramento State, which is also an underwriter.
Update, Oct. 5, 3:26 p.m.: This story has been updated with additional comments from Sacramento State faculty member Anne Luna.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled CSU Employee Union president Catherine Hutchinson's name. It has since been updated.
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