On Dec. 6, 2024, after hours of last-minute negotiations, the Macalester Undergraduate Workers’ Union (MUWU) and representatives of Macalester staved off a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing by coming to a consensus, known as a stipulated agreement, regarding the limits of MUWU’s bargaining unit, rules of voter eligibility and logistics of the election.
On Tuesday, Feb. 25, and Wednesday, Feb. 26, eligible Macalester student workers will have the opportunity to vote on whether they want to be represented by MUWU. If 50 percent plus one of those who participate in the election vote yes, MUWU will become a legally-recognized union and will be able to collectively bargain on student workers’ behalf.
After filing for election with the NLRB on Nov. 25, 2024, MUWU and Macalester entered into a week and a half of negotiations in an attempt to form a stipulated agreement. The two parties did not reach an agreement before the day of the hearing, which is uncommon. Representatives of MUWU showed up at the NLRB on Dec. 6 expecting a hearing, but reached a stipulated agreement with Macalester that day instead.
Eliot Berk ’26, a MUWU organizer involved in NLRB negotiations, was relieved to come to this agreement rather than resolve disputes in a hearing.
“A hearing could have done a lot of things,” Berk said. “It would have been very unpredictable. Especially going into the Trump presidency and going into the Trump NLRB, we were really worried about potentially waiting months and months to hear about … if we would have an election for a union. So I am very glad that [the regional NLRB director] didn’t have to get involved. We were able to amicably come to an agreement together.”
In the stipulated agreement, the two parties agreed to exclude off-campus workers, including Bonner scholars, from the bargaining unit. They will wait to decide whether stipended workers, including Residential Assistants (RAs), are in the bargaining unit. These workers’ votes in the election will be subject to challenge. The parties also extended voter eligibility to on-campus student workers employed by Macalester during the payroll period ending Saturday, Feb. 8. Workers who do not fall into that category, but who worked an average of four hours per week during the fall semester of 2024 and are not currently studying abroad, will be able to vote too. Finally, MUWU and Macalester decided to hold the election from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4-7 p.m. in the Harmon Room of the DeWitt Wallace Library on Tuesday, Feb. 25 and Wednesday, Feb. 26.
“After having discussions, MUWU agreed with Macalester’s proposed bargaining unit,” Vice President for Administration and Finance Patricia Langer, who represented Macalester during NLRB discussions, summarized in an email to The Mac Weekly. “Macalester agreed to MUWU’s choice for election site, days and times.”
MUWU had been pushing to include every Macalester student worker in their bargaining unit; their goal has been to form a wall-to-wall union since the spring of 2023. However, they had clashed with Macalester over the status of off-campus and stipended workers.
The two parties disagreed about how to interpret an NLRB rule that workers must share an “overwhelming community of interest” to be in the same collective bargaining unit. Macalester believed that off-campus conditions are different enough from those on campus that on- and off-campus student employees do not share a sufficient community of interest. MUWU argued that conditions between jobs on campus vary wildly, so off-campus positions aren’t more different than any two of their on-campus counterparts.
In addition, MUWU argued that, even though Macalester cannot directly control the conditions of off-campus jobs, they had a responsibility to vet off-campus positions to ensure a positive experience for off-campus student workers. Macalester disagreed, believing that this would be outside of their purview.
“Macalester cannot control entities off campus that hire our students; therefore, Macalester cannot bargain with a union over working conditions for jobs off campus,” Langer wrote.
Sihaam Barre ’28 works off campus as part of the Bonner program, a national organization that aims to help predominantly low-income students access education and opportunities to serve. Bonner scholars work off campus so they can advocate for people around the city and support the program’s community partners, Barre explained. She and the Bonner scholars with whom she spoke felt let down by their exclusion from the bargaining unit.
“We have all talked and agreed that if you are going to open [a] place as an opportunity to work off campus, then you should know that it is a safe place, a place that will prioritize the individual that’s working there, and it will be a good place for them to work,” Barre said. “We were disappointed overall by the decision, and we knew that even though it might take a little bit of extra work to ensure that our working conditions are good for the worker, it is work that should still be done. ”
In the aftermath of this bargaining unit concession, MUWU is staying close to its original goal by working to keep Bonner scholars and other off-campus student workers involved with the union effort. In addition, the group still plans to bargain with a goal of improving conditions for every student worker, both on and off campus.
“Bonner scholars are primarily made up of lower-income, people of color, first-generation students,” Barre said. “So it’s really easy for our group to think that, like, ‘Oh, we’re being excluded from this group,’ because we have historically been excluded from other groups. … I can clearly see [MUWU is] doing the work to try to involve us.”
While MUWU and Macalester came to a decision about excluding off-campus student workers, they left stipended workers’ inclusion or exclusion from the bargaining unit undecided for now. MUWU believes that stipended workers, including RAs, research assistants and summer researchers, share a community of interest and deserve union representation. Macalester, on the other hand, argued that stipended jobs are too different from hourly employment.
“Individuals who receive stipend payments do not fall into one uniform category,” Langer wrote. “For example, some students compensated by stipends receive payments intended to offset living expenses incurred during learning experiences. These payments do not equate to traditional hourly employment.”
RAs, research assistants, summer researchers and other stipended student employees will be able to vote in the upcoming election, but with challenged ballots. The challenged status of these ballots will only be debated if MUWU wins the election with a margin lower than the number of stipended workers who vote. In this case, a decision would be made about whether to count stipended workers’ ballots.
Stipended workers’ status in the bargaining unit will be resolved after the election if necessary.
The election will be conducted with secret ballots; although voters will give their name to the NLRB agent present, they will not mark their name on their ballot. In fact, the ballot will only ask voters whether they wish to be represented by MUWU for purposes of collective bargaining, to which they can answer “yes” or “no.”
Berk said that the main concerns Macalester students have had about MUWU are paying dues and the legality of unionization. He explained that it is very unlikely that the cost of union dues, which would be determined following unionization, would outweigh the pay raise that collective bargaining would aim to win. In addition, forming, joining and assisting a union, as well as choosing not to do any of these things, are completely legal under NLRB law.
MUWU organizers are excited to have reached an agreement with Macalester and to be heading towards the election.
“We’ve been at this for two years,” MUWU organizer Emily Thorpe ’26 said. “At this point, it now feels so much more real than it has been. We have a real election coming up. We’re getting people to say they’re gonna vote yes, and then we’ll get to start negotiating contracts soon. It is very, very exciting and rewarding to have put in so much work and have that come to fruition very soon.”