Kenyon College Files Motion to Dismiss Petition for Union Certification Election
On Thursday, October 21, the College, through outside legal services provided by Jones Day, informed K-SWOC that it has filed a motion to indefinitely delay the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing to determine the details of our election, and a motion to dismiss our petition for election entirely. Jones Day’s motion rests on a long list of false claims — that student workers are not covered under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) because of our “educational” relationship to the College, that filing for a union election would lead to violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), that student workers “are not core the College’s business operations,” and, because some student positions are temporary, that none of us deserve the rights the workplace protections under the NLRA. UE’s legal counsel is preparing a thorough rebuttal to these bad-faith arguments, which we will share once it is completed, we first and foremost wanted to keep everyone informed of the College’s actions.
These claims are as false as they are unoriginal. Multiple private-sector graduate and undergraduate units have organized successful union elections under the NLRA, most notably a wall-to-wall unit of Grinnell College undergraduate student workers in 2018. Our allies in the student worker labor community have assured us our right to organize is protected under current NLRB case law, which is now enforced by pro-worker judges appointed by President Joe Biden in August. In every case of student workers attempting to organize a union under current NLRB case law, college and university administrations and their union-busting law firms have used the same arguments Jones Day is using against us. In every case, those arguments have failed. The NLRB has made it clear: student workers are workers, and as workers we have the right to form the union of our choice.
The most insulting argument made by the College is that student work is unessential; that we provide no value to the College’s “core business operations.” Let’s ask ourselves, what is the College’s “core business operation”? If the College’s core business operation is the education of the students who are enrolled here, then how are student workers unessential to that operation?
Are Community Advisors who are critical front-line resources to all of their residents, but especially first-year students, unessential to the College? Are Lifeguards who ensure the safety of all students and community members who use the pool, unessential to the College? Are LBIS workers who ensure smooth access to technology and library resources for students, faculty, and staff, unessential to the College? Are Bookstore student workers who staff early morning and late-night shifts literally selling products for the College, have nothing to do with its core business operations? Are Admissions tour guides and senior fellows, who are tasked with the responsibility of recruiting each subsequent class of Kenyon students, unessential to the College? Does the College seriously want us to believe that ATs, STEM TAs and graders, MSSC tutors, and Writing Center workers—whose paid work directly relates to and enhances the College’s primary educational mission—are unessential to the College’s “core business operations”?
We know the answer to all of those questions is no. We know the value that student workers provide to this community and the College because we live those experiences. No outside union-busting lawyer can take that away from us. Put simply, this motion is an attempt to delay the inevitable: the law is on our side, we will have an election where student workers, not the College and not Jones Day, will decide for themselves whether they want to form a union. The decision by the College administration to file this motion threatens the democratic decision of K-SWOC members to go forth with filing for an election with the intent of voting this semester.
The College is testing our will by trying to indefinitely delay our election. It is up to us as student workers to not give into these delay tactics and continue to organize ourselves, our coworkers, and our community to see this process through and finally sit at the bargaining table as equals with the College to improve our working lives. If you haven’t already, sign this petition to tell the College that student workers deserve to have a free and fair election (https://forms.gle/PgHHbshQoFzYiA7fA) and add your name to the list of student workers who plan to vote yes for the union this semester (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wpwCv-dLBu4Inf9Hrbii0zdQ-Hj1wG_K139PavLrrQ8/edit?usp=sharing.) If you want guidance for reaching out to your coworkers to organize them into the campaign, don’t hesitate to contact union@kswoc.org.
The Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee