Nick Becker is a senior at Kenyon College from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is majoring in political science and is a member of the Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee (KSWOC). He works in the library and admissions departments.
On April 11, Kenyon College student workers began an indefinite strike to win union recognition. Jacobin spoke to four student organizers about what their fight means for the growth of undergraduate student worker unions across the country.
Kenyon College student workers are on an unfair labor practice strike today. The strike comes during a campaign to organize the first US union representing all undergraduate workers on a campus. Jacobin spoke to several strikers and two campus maintenance workers supporting them about why they’re organizing — and how other students can follow their example.
Workers throughout the United States have had to organize to demand basic workplace health and safety protections during the pandemic. That’s also true of workers in higher education — including Kenyon College, where undergraduate workers are organizing a union.