At the start of the Spring 2024 semester, the Macalester Undergraduate Workers’ Union (MUWU) catapulted into the campus conversation when they announced their intention to unionize all of Macalester’s student workers. They continued this push throughout the spring and summer, negotiating with representatives of Macalester’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) over voluntary recognition and a neutrality agreement. Neither set of negotiations ended as MUWU had hoped.
When their employees are signing union cards, employers have the option to voluntarily recognize the union once a certain percentage of workers sign a union card. This allows employees to bypass the process of filing for an election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and then scheduling and holding the election, instead going straight into the bargaining process.
Macalester’s administrators denied MUWU’s requests for voluntary recognition, saying that student workers signing union cards is not democratic because it is not technically a vote, according to Eliot Berk ’26, who is a shop lead and works on communications for MUWU.
“This response from the administration was disappointing to hear,” Berk said. Although MUWU members were not expecting to get voluntary recognition, they had entered talks with a nearby example of voluntary recognition: the union of Bon Appétit workers on Macalester’s campus. These workers, who are employed by Bon Appétit and not by Macalester, were voluntarily recognized as a union this past spring. This example, however, did not sway administrators.
Berk believes that voluntary recognition would have been beneficial for both MUWU and the SLT.
“Not just harder for us; it’s harder for them,” Berk said. “They have to go through all this work to get a lawyer and to have all of this back-and-forth, [which takes] so much more time. I’m sure there’s many more reasons, but to us, it seems like a big reason why [refusing voluntary recognition] could have happened is that it will drag things out; we do have a finite amount of time on campus.”
After being denied voluntary recognition, MUWU decided to push for a neutrality agreement, a document that both the college and the union would sign in commitment to norms dictating how they would act during attempts at unionization.
From mid-April to late July, MUWU and the SLT exchanged emails and drafts of the neutrality agreement. The SLT’s emails were all signed either by President Suzanne Rivera or by Vice President of Administration and Finance Patricia Langer. Berk credits the SLT with being quick to confirm receipt of MUWU’s emails, and for providing reasoning for the most important changes they made.
MUWU’s initial neutrality agreement was comprehensive, covering pre-election and election procedures, post-election bargaining obligations and norms around communication and free speech, in addition to the neutrality pledge itself.
On the other hand, the SLT wanted the agreement to be focused on rules directly related to neutrality on the part of both themselves and the union, which influenced much of their communication during the neutrality negotiation process.
For example, in the first revised draft they sent back to MUWU, the SLT had removed the entire pre-election and election procedures sections and an arrangement for the college and the union to collaborate on an informational letter notifying student workers of an election, as well as other sections of the draft.
The SLT added a sentence saying that the neutrality agreement would not prevent either the union or the college from using the legal system to challenge the election or certification.
One of the changes that most concerned MUWU members was the SLT’s removal of specific language around neutrality.
MUWU’s original neutrality agreement included a list of actions that Macalester’s Senior Staff and employees who supervise student workers would not take: “engag[ing] in any efforts to influence the vote, including by not taking any action [or] making any statement that directly or indirectly states or implies opposition to unionization, … intimidating or retaliating against any student for any aspect of union organizing, and … engaging in any delaying tactics that might frustrate or interfere with student efforts to unionize.”
The SLT took these specifics out and replaced them with a short statement about exercising neutrality in their verbal and written communications regarding the union.
“It was very vague,” Berk said about the SLT’s language. “They took out the specific wording of it and so it was very suspicious.”
The SLT defended their decision by saying that the neutrality pledge should enumerate actions that the union cannot take, not just ones the college cannot take. MUWU expressed their willingness to list specific actions that they would refrain from taking, as well as their belief in the importance of clear and enforceable language.
“This neutrality agreement may be rendered pointless if these specifics are excluded,” MUWU wrote in an email to the SLT.
MUWU’s other main concern was the SLT excluding stipended student workers from MUWU’s bargaining unit. In a subsequent email, the SLT explained that they had made this decision because they believe that stipended workers’ job conditions are too different from those of other student employees. For instance, some stipended workers receive non-wage compensation or work off campus.
MUWU disagreed about how important this difference is.
“While there are certainly differences between the jobs performed by stipend versus hourly-wage employees, these differences are no more pronounced than the ones that already exist between hourly campus jobs,” MUWU wrote in an email to the SLT. “[Removing stipended workers from the bargaining unit] would unfairly exclude fellow student workers from their right to collectively bargain.”
MUWU would not sign a contract in which student workers receiving a stipend could not be part of their bargaining unit, MUWU wrote in an email to the SLT.
“Stipended workers are workers and they deserve to have a say in their conditions,” Alex Beaudreau ’26, who is involved with MUWU, said. “We are unwilling to compromise on that.”
Paul J. Zech, the lawyer that Macalester administrators hired specifically to work on MUWU-related issues, works for Felhaber Larson, a management-side law firm that is no stranger to trying to split up bargaining units. The firm represented the company Essentia Health, whose workers overwhelmingly voted in favor of unionizing earlier this year. After the election, Essentia Health appealed the NLRB’s decision to allow their workers’ vote for a union, arguing that the jobs contained in the bargaining unit are too different to be represented under one contract.
“That’s the same argument that Macalester is using to try to exclude RAs and other stipended workers from our union,” MUWU members wrote on a flier about Felhaber Larson.
A little over a decade ago, Felhaber Larson represented three different companies who were conducting lockouts of their workers. During lockouts, companies do not let their employees come into work until they agree with certain demands. This is an extreme tactic that deprives employees of their pay and possibly of their benefits, and impacts the company’s operations.
Berk did not expect Macalester to choose a lawyer like Zech.
“Seeing that … that’s the lawyer that they sought out specifically during this process [in addition to them] generally not being willing to … change things on the neutrality agreement both have confirmed to us that they’re not really negotiating in good faith with us,” Berk said. “Which was really sad! I was expecting them to. Especially at a college like Macalester [whose] morals and a lot of what they pride themself on are being liberal and being seemingly open to a lot of things, it seems like unions should be something that they should be trying to be supportive of. It’s really disappointing to see that’s not the case. It seems like this doesn’t really align with their mission.”
Negotiations around a neutrality agreement stalled in late July.
Despite the disappointing summer, MUWU has leaned into another push this semester. They have been getting union cards signed and teaching first-years about their efforts, all with the goal of filing for an election with the NLRB.
