Reed Worker’s Council Established, Constitution Ratified, Delegates Elected
On Sunday, November 2, the Reed Worker’s Council (RWC) had its first meeting in the Oregon AFL-CIO Hall on SE 32nd Ave from 3 to 5pm. According to their newly-ratified Constitution, the RWC seeks to “bring together under one banner URCHA, SEIU 49, and all other unionized or non-unionized workers working at Reed College,” “[o]rganize solidarity actions between all of its members,” “[p]rovide the non-unionized workers under Reed College support and provide the resources to form their own unions,” and “[s]pread the principles of independent, democratic, and radical labor organizing to both its members and the wider Reed College community.”
Although the RWC was founded by multiple preexisting unions, it is not a union itself. A worker’s council divides labor not by trade, but by location (in this case, all workers who primarily work at Reed College), and, according to their Constitution, “may consist of many bargaining units gathered together,” intending to include all workers, both unionized and non-unionized.
In the founding congress, RWC Central Council members Eli Rall ‘26 and Calum Knight ‘28 led a session teaching members about how to form a union and what resources the RWC hopes to provide to students. They took input from student workers on what role they would like the RWC to play in helping make Reed a better workplace. Rall and Knight then went over the RWC Constitution, and RWC members suggested amendments. The Constitution was then unanimously ratified and two delegates were elected to represent the non-unionized workers at Reed: Kathryn Trent ‘26, a grader and Reed Research Reactor Senior Reactor Operator (SRO); and Max Juszynski ‘28, a mailroom worker.
“Part of the work of the [RWC] is to connect you with the appropriate union for you,” Rall explained. They then went over the unions that currently represent groups on campus, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), and Teamsters. Out of these, Rall mentioned that OPEIU and potentially Teamsters are open to taking working groups.
Rall and Knight then went over the history of the Union of Reed College Housing Advisors (URCHA) (to which both belong, Knight being the URCHA Steward) as an example of how to start a union. The first step, they explained, is to start conversations with your coworkers, and see what they would like to change about their working environment. They led a breakout exercise at each table where they had people answer the question, “if you had a magic wand and could fix anything about your workplace, what would it be?” This “magic wand” idea, they explained, helps start important conversations that could lead to union support.
Afterwards, Rall and Knight explained that it’s good to start figuring out which of your coworkers are in support of a union via keeping notes on a spreadsheet. The point of this is to figure out, as Rall explains, “if we were to have a union vote tomorrow, would this pass?” At the same time, they recommend beginning to make a working group among other coworkers interested in forming a union to meet regularly and talk about unionization. After you reach a supermajority on the spreadsheet, Rall and Knight then say it’s time to make union cards, which essentially authorize a union such as SEIU or OPEIU to represent you in labor matters.
The next step, the organizers explained, is to file with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and ask for voluntary recognition from the administration. At the same time, they recommend to start rallying to gain widespread support, similar to the HA rally in 2023. Voluntary recognition, Rall and Knight explained, does not happen most of the time, so the next step would be to set an election date with the NLRB. At this point, they said, your employers will typically try to dissuade you from voting in support of a union, as Reed did in the lead-up to the HA unionization vote. Tactics used by Reed included telling workers that unionizing will hurt your relationship with your manager, which Rall and Knight explained is often not the case, saying that the HAs’ Area Coordinators “were just as on board with supporting us before our union contract as they were after our union contract.”
The second tactic used by Reed, and many other employers, is telling workers that they will have to pay excessive union dues. URCHA members explained that this does not line up with reality. The minimum dues payment URCHA pays is $45 a month, and Rall explains that “our raise we got from our negotiation more than covers that.” This lines up with most unions, as most union dues are one hour’s worth of salary per month, but unionized workers tend to make 13% more than non-unionized employees.
When holding an election, poll watchers from Reed’s legal team, from the union that represents you, and from the NLRB will be there to authorize the votes. The wording of the ballots can sometimes be confusing, but when in doubt, Rall says, “Vote yes! Yes means union!” If the vote is over 50% in support of a union, then Reed is required to recognize and negotiate with your union.
The next step is contract negotiations, which takes the longest amount of time. For URCHA, it took 18 months. This delay is intentional; Rall and Knight explained that employers try to delay contract negotiations to break down union support, saying that during URCHA negotiations, “the vast majority of that time was spent telling us as HAs that we were absolutely crazy to ask for any amount of pay above what we get as a stipend already.”
All of these steps can be intimidating for someone who has never started a union before, but the RWC hopes to mitigate the intimidation behind the bureaucracy. The meeting then broke into groups to discuss some of the unique conditions Reed workers face and how the RWC could benefit them.
One of the first issues brought up was that many Reed students who work semi-remote jobs, such as graders and tutors, often do not know who all their coworkers are and don’t meet regularly, making it difficult to start conversations about unionization. Strategies were discussed to mitigate this issue, like how to find out who else works in a similar department as you through mass email lists.
Another RWC member asked about strategies to keep up the momentum of unionization efforts over time, and Rall explained that this mostly comes down to regular communication and social events. “Every other week I would try to send something out into other people’s email boxes,” said Rall, who also suggests looking for ways to meet coworkers outside of work in a casual setting, like getting dinner or drinks together. In these casual settings, the organizers recommend trying to float the idea around how your lives might be different if your job had a union contract.
The RWC also discussed strategies for mitigating fear and intimidation, emphasizing that it is illegal for an employer to fire someone for attempting to unionize. “If you can prove that you were fired for attempting to unionize, you can get tens of thousands of dollars from suing your employer,” a RWC member explained. Rall and Knight discussed potential worst case scenarios given workers’ legal rights, noting that the worst thing Reed can do is pull you into a one-on-one meeting; they cannot discipline you in any way. In Oregon, your employer cannot require you to go to a mass meeting specifically geared towards union-busting. To keep your employers accountable, the organizers emphasized building good habits by sending follow-up emails after meetings with your boss just to have everything in writing and on record. Custodial union representative Anna Roberts explained, “Reed wants you to be afraid, because then you won’t do anything; they want to use your fear against you, but they don’t actually have the authority to do things, so they’re hoping you’ll continue to be afraid.”
Roberts then went on to explain that unions have made considerable progress in changing things for the better for Reed employees. The custodial union capped the amount custodians could be charged for family health insurance and now they are paying half of what they would be without that cap.
In breakout groups, RWC members then discussed how they could envision the RWC acting as a resource for them. Members brought up how the RWC could help people learn their rights, provide a space to meet off-campus, and with help to provide institutional memory by being a long-term institution tied to its constituent unions. Members also discussed how parts of the RWC could have a branch organized similarly to a club on campus intended for both students and non-student staff in order to have both on- and off-campus presence and have a venue for communicating with the campus community outside of the RWC. One RWC member discussed the possibility of spreading awareness to freshmen during Orientation Week, in order to ensure students know the resources they have available to them as student workers as soon as possible.
In the latter half of the founding congress, Rall and Knight went over their drafted Constitution, written by Knight. RWC members then suggested amendments before voting on the Constitution and electing Central Council members, whose duties are as explained below.
Article I of the Constitution establishes the name and location of the RWC, noting that the RWC is “affiliated with no higher organization nor considers itself to be a formal part of Reed College,” instead “primarily concerning itself with the condition of workers employed by Reed College.”
Article II of the Constitution justifies the RWC’s reason for existence and defines how a worker’s council is different from a union. It also notes that no external body may order the dissolution of the RWC as long as there are members within both the General Congress and Central Council.
Article III of the Constitution declares the purpose and aims of the RWC, noting that the RWC “considers its duty to provide assistance to the struggles of the workers of Reed College,” considering “the creation of stronger community ties between the student body and the workers of Reed College to be another one of its primary aims.” It also outlines specific guiding principles, such as proportional and democratic representation of all workers under Reed College, workers rights, principles of “anti-racism, gender equality, sustainability, and LGBTQ+ rights,” and committing to the “struggle against Fascism and Corporatism.”
Article IV of the Constitution defines the RWC’s jurisdiction as “ within the Campus of Reed College,” and its intention “to organize and represent all the workers, student or otherwise, working at Reed College.”
Article V of the Constitution describes the structure of the RWC and the nature of its elections. The RWC operates within a bicameral system, including a General Congress (GC) and a Central Council (CC). The GC consists of all members of the RWC, intending to meet once a semester, and has full rights to make amendments, plan events, and elect the CC from its own members. The CC consists of elected union stewards and elected delegates from the non-unionized workers, along with two non-voting members from Senate and non-voting student members and is responsible for the “coordination, organization, and assistance of all Reed workers.” Article V also lays out that there should be one elected non-unionized delegate for every five workers. Since twelve General Congress members were at the founding congress, two CC members were elected. “Ideally,” explained Rall, “these delegates then turn into your stewards once you have a contract.”
Article VI lays out the duties of the Central Council, which include minimum monthly meetings, scheduling meetings for the General Congress, and planning events, rallies, and pamphlets with the help of temporary positions created by members of the General Congress.
Article VII lays out membership. The original definition of a worker eligible to join RWC was that one had to be a worker employed by Reed College, but since some workers on campus (non-student Commons employees) are technically employed by Bon Appétit and not Reed, the definition was expanded to be all workers whose primary work location is Reed College. This would include Bon Appétit employees, but not temporary contractors such as people only at Reed Reed to fix the HVAC system, for example. Article VII also notes how union bargaining units can vote to join the RWC, and how non-unionized workers can voluntarily seek membership in the RWC, noting that “under no circumstances may the RWC refuse to represent these non-unionized workers.”
A point of Article VII which was contentious was Section III, which originally said “No member of management or any supervisors under the employment of Reed College or any other corporate entity may join the RWC.” At the founding congress, issues were brought up about faculty members, and whether they count as supervisors, considering that they somewhat oversee course assistants and graders, although those positions are technically overseen by the academic department. The issue is that, as Rall explained, “a lot of these systems are opaque to students.” The National Labor Relations Act defines a supervisor as someone with hiring and firing power over employees. It is not clear to the RWC whether faculty fit this definition at this time. While faculty are welcome to show support at RWC meetings to show support, the RWC wants to do more research on how positions like RAs, graders, and course assistants function before making a conclusion.
The NLRA definition of a supervisor also helped clear confusion regarding another position on campus. Many student-led positions, such as SROs at the Reed Research Reactor like Trent, are sometimes colloquially considered supervisors but are still welcome at the RWC because they do not have the ability to directly hire or fire employees. Even though they do play a significant role in the hiring process, they do not fit the NLRA’s definition of a supervisor.
However, members expressed concern that the exclusion of all supervisors could potentially harm communication with supervisors who are sympathetic to the RWC and want to use their power to help workers on campus. A concerned RWC member mentioned that in the past, unionization efforts at Reed have fallen apart by excluding non-admin supervisors from the conversation.
Eventually, it was proposed to ratify the Constitution to include that “if a petition is made for a supervisor to join the RWC, the CC can vote to accept their non-voting membership” on the condition that they do not report RWC membership to the administration.
Non-working students can also join as non-voting members of the GC and can elect a single non-voting member of the CC, and get priority to help out with temporary positions. The RWC does not represent student body Senators, but they are allowed to observe and record both CC and General Congress meetings.
Article VIII describes the purpose of the founding congress, which took place on Sunday to elect the Central Council, also including the note that at the founding congress a “general celebration will be held.” It can be confirmed that a general celebration was held (there were cookies).
Article IX includes special clauses. These include the note that “nothing in this Constitution waives employee’s rights otherwise identified in their CBAs or under any federal or state laws,” along with a provision for another worker’s council to form at another location where there may not be pre-existing unionized bargaining units, as there are at Reed.
After the runthrough of the Constitution, it was voted on and was unanimously ratified. Organizers then called for two student workers who were interested in running as delegates to the Central Council. Since only two students (Trent and Juszynski) ran unopposed, they automatically became delegates.
In conversation with Kathryn Trent on what they wanted to help do as a delegate for graders at Reed, they explained that “our position only lasts about six months and we don’t actually know what our hours are going to be. We’re guaranteed five hours, but we don’t actually get five hours and we don’t know if we get paid the rest.” They would like the RWC “to help us navigate what it might be like to start talking to other graders in other departments maybe or in the same department, in organizing, if not forming an official union at least talking to the department and making a lot of questions that we have clear.”
As a Reed Research Reactor (RRR) SRO, Trent also wants the RWC to help address the relationship between the RRR and the administration. The RRR is “fairly expensive and the administration does not like to fund that … that is money that we absolutely need in order to hire students and have us work. A lot of the time we are barred from working because we don’t have enough money to pay people for the rest of the year.” They hope that the RWC will “[be] a resource where we can coordinate with the existing HA union, and figure out how the Reactor might organize themselves into forming a union, which is something that’s been discussed for my five years working at the reactor that has never actually come to fruition, that would be an extremely useful resource.”
As a delegate for mailroom employees, Max Juszynski, is “hoping to help protect the full-time staff against cuts to their benefits and potentially secure them some of the benefits that they have lost.” They are “also hoping to ensure better job security for both full time and student staff.” Juszynski believes that the RWC can help achieve these goals by fostering “communication between student and full-time workers as well as connecting us to other workplaces on campus that are larger and more experienced with organizing.”
One attendee at the founding congress, Mika Hosler ‘26, wants to create collaboration between labor organization on campus and preexisting student activism as part of the Sunrise Movement. Hosler, who is a founding leadership team member of Sunrise Reed, is “excited to see cross-student and staff power on campus,” especially in the lead up to the May 1, 2028 general strike supported by the Sunrise Movement “in the name of labor justice and in the name of a better green, more humane, more just economy.” They are “excited to be a part of this council and for more Reedies to get involved … it’s worth the effort to have a network to fall back on.”
