Some student workers at Grinnell College may soon be on strike to raise wages and to create better on-the-job discrimination and harassment protections for all student workers.
The strike was authorized to begin Wednesday if Grinnell, a private college in Poweshiek County, refuses to meet workers’ demands. It affects only community advisors at Grinnell, according to organizer Hannah Sweet.
CAs ON STRIKE CAs have authorized a strike to begin THIS WEDNESDAY if the College refuses to meet our demands! pic.twitter.com/lUacaELMR0
— UGSDW (@UGSDW) May 9, 2023
Sweet said the strike would be “indefinite.” Workers are demanding a campus base wage of $15 per hour, “fair compensation” for community advisors, and “a fair process to address discrimination and harassment on the job,” Sweet told Starting Line.
Grinnell College, however, said the contract isn’t up until June 30, and say workers’ current contract contains a “no strike clause.” Such clauses prevent workers from striking until their contract is up.
“As such, the College will file an Unfair Labor Practice complaint with the NLRB,” or National Labor Relations Board, which oversees federal labor law, the college said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
Grinnell College’s undergraduate student workers organized and won a union in May 2022, becoming the first private college in the US to unionize its undergraduate workers.
They organized under the existing Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW), which...
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