Reed Community Safety Officers Unanimously Approve Union Membership
On February 24, Reed Community Safety Officers (CSOs) held a vote to approve membership in the International Union of Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA). The vote was unanimous, with a final count of fourteen in favor and zero against.
According to Chuck Stroud, the SPFPA union representative working with the CSOs, the organization process began in early January. The officers collected enough interest cards “within about a week” to begin the process with the SPFPA. On January 12, the SPFPA filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a secret ballot election. Both parties, Reed College and SPFPA, designated an election observer to certify eligible voters. Once the results are certified by the NLRB, the CSOs can begin negotiating a new contract as a unionized group. During the negotiations, the College’s bargaining unit will include Heather Quinn-Barron, the Director of Human Resources, Kevin Williams, Interim Director of Community Safety, as well as legal counsel, an immediate supervisor, and Karnell McConnell-Black, the Vice President of Student Life, who will participate until a new Director of Community Safety is appointed. The CSOs will elect a Bargaining Committee as their representatives at the negotiating table.
Quinn-Barron indicated that due to the location of SPFPA in Michigan, coordinating a place and time for bargaining may present some “logistical challenges.” In response, Stroud told the Quest that the SPFPA’s “national structure is designed specifically to support officers wherever they work. SPFPA maintains full-time service representatives assigned to regions across the country, ensuring that members receive consistent representation, support, and communication regardless of location or shift schedules. Because of this structure and our experience representing security professionals nationwide, we do not foresee time zone differences or scheduling logistics creating barriers to effective representation.”
Prior to the beginning of the organizing process, there were no formal complaints filed by the CSOs through the grievance process, nor did they express any specific complaints to the union about the actions of the College. “Rather, they were focused on improving their overall working conditions and livelihood through collective representation,” according to Stroud.
The CSOs’ efforts to unionize were first reported to the Reed community via an email from McConnell-Black following the unanimous vote of approval. In the email entitled “Union Representation of Community Safety Officers,” McConnell-Black stated: “We respect and affirm the CSOs’ right to organize and to make this decision through a fair and democratic process. Reed is committed to engaging in good-faith bargaining and to working collaboratively with the union’s representatives to establish a collective bargaining agreement that supports our CSOs and advances the mission and values of the College.” Quinn-Barron affirmed to the Quest that the email represented Reed’s position on the CSO union. Quinn-Barron further explained that “embracing the mission and values of the College” will, in practice, look like the College “embracing and adhering to the College’s established employee policies, benefits structure, and compensation philosophy, which are designed to ensure fairness and equity across all employee groups.” Discussions at the negotiating table will be “considered within that broader institutional framework,” she added.
None of the officers in the Reed Community Safety office provided a comment to the Quest. Interim Director Williams was not able to speak to the Quest due to preplanned travel. However, Student Body President Andrew Happy ’27 and Appointments Committee Co-Chair Sima Fasihi ’28 met with Williams and Assistant Director Dhyana Westfall in their capacity as CSO liaisons shortly after McConnell-Black's email was sent to the Reed community. According to Happy, Community Safety management had very little knowledge or involvement in the unionization process. However, Williams signified his desire to offer support to the officers as someone who has worked with unions in various capacities throughout his career. “He was honestly surprised that the CSOs hadn’t had a union already,” Happy said.
Community Safety Officers at Reed have previously attempted to unionize under the Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These efforts, which began in the fall of 2018, quickly ran into difficulties because of Section 7(b)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, often referred to as the ‘guard exclusion.’ The guard exclusion prevents the NLRB from certifying a union with non-guard members as a collective bargaining representation for security guards like the CSOs. However, guards may join non-guard unions if an employer voluntarily recognizes the union as the bargaining representative. In January of 2019, CSOs sent a letter to Mike Brody, the Vice President for Student Services at the time, asking Reed to “commit to a free and fair process for us to form our union” under SEIU. In response, Brody sent an email to the Community Safety staff in which he told staff he respected their point of view but pointed out “quite a few changes recently” that he saw as “very positive” and invited the CSOs for further discussion. He also told CSOs in the email that “no union organizing activities may take place on the clock, i.e. while you are on duty (and not on break). As well, meetings with external union organizers are not allowed on campus.” While the NLRB, particularly under the Trump administration, has typically allowed employers to prohibit union discussion on the clock and prevent union organizers from entering employer property, the SEIU filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against Reed College on behalf of the CSOs. The charge was withdrawn several months later. In the end, the efforts to unionize fizzled out after several of the officers involved in the organizing process left and the College failed to voluntarily recognize the SEIU as the CSOs’ collective bargaining representative.
Quinn-Barron did not provide a comment on the 2019 unionizing efforts or the Unfair Labor Practice charge but told the Quest that “union-related discussions amongst the CSOs may take place offsite or onsite during employees’ non-working time, including scheduled breaks” and “any union organizer must receive prior authorization to be on campus and may not disrupt work activities or College operations.”
The most recent CSO unionization efforts have come after several interactions between the College and unions on campus which have garnered controversy from the Reed community, including the custodians’ and housing advisors’ unions. Senate previously worked with the custodians union to gather student support for their bargaining efforts. “We saw that student voices were really influential in working with admin” for the custodians, said Happy. He added that Senate is “happy to work with the CSO union if there’s any issues that do come up that they'd like students’ support on” and that the student body will “continue to be a resource that they are more than welcome to tap into, should they experience issues with their negotiations.”
For Reed’s part, Quinn-Barron told the Quest that “the College has bargained in good faith and will continue to bargain in good faith. Employers are subject to significant legal obligations during organizing and collective bargaining, and the College has fully complied with those requirements. The College has not interfered with unionization efforts, and any suggestion otherwise is not accurate.”