In the weeks since student workers voted to be represented by Macalester Undergraduate Workers’ Union (MUWU) on Feb. 26, Macalester has made unilateral changes to student employment without negotiating with MUWU or notifying them prior to announcing the changes. MUWU alleges that the language the college used to justify these policies and the changes themselves conflict with a number of labor laws and legal decisions.
Legal concerns
The changes include: removing entry-level employment for students without federal work-study awards and reducing working hours at the Leonard Center (LC).
“Our concern is about unilateral changes to what are called mandatory bargaining issues,” Gabe, a MUWU organizer who requested to be identified only by their first name, said. “We were told by our [United Auto Workers] service rep … that in the period between certification of a union after an election and implementation of the first collective bargaining agreement, the employer is not legally allowed to make these unilateral changes.”
On its website, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) explains that Section 8 (a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) precludes employers from refusing to bargain collectively with representatives of employees. This means that employers cannot “[m]ake changes in wages, hours, working conditions or other mandatory subjects of bargaining before negotiating with the union to agreement or overall impasse.”
Section 8 (d) of the NLRA defines collective bargaining as the act of “the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.”
“The number of shifts available, eligibility for employment and maximum hours students are permitted to work in an academic year can plainly be interpreted as ‘wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment,’ and are therefore mandatory bargaining subjects,” Gabe wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “Whether or not the college characterizes them as changes to its policy or practice, its recent decisions have undeniably resulted in the effect of changes to mandatory bargaining subjects without even notifying MUWU, much less bargaining with us.”
On Thursday, April 10, MUWU sent an email to Vice President for Administration and Finance Patricia Langer regarding the union’s questions and concerns with the changes. On Monday, April 14, Langer responded to MUWU’s email with four bullet points explaining the rationale behind the changes. The email was later sent to The Mac Weekly by Student Employment Program Manager Jaelynn Blenkush.
In her email, Langer stated that it has always been college policy that only uniquely qualified students without work-study awards are permitted to hold on-campus jobs, that work reassignments take place frequently to adhere to the budget and that student employment is primarily a financial aid service for students with work-study.
“None of these items are a change in practice as you have alleged,” Langer wrote to MUWU in her email. “They are a regular process that occurs annually at this time of year at the college as we prepare for staffing the fall semester.”
Gabe and MUWU take issue with Langer’s response, calling it an example of ‘past practice’ rationale, and claiming that it violates the 2023 NLRB supplemental decision and order Wendt Corporation and NLRB v. Katz, a 1962 U.S Supreme Court case.
Wendt Corporation states that “an employer may not defend a unilateral change in terms and condition of employment that would otherwise violate Section 8(a)(5) by citing a past practice of such changes before its employees were represented by a union and thus before the employer had a statutory duty to bargain with the union.”
In NLRB v. Katz, which Wendt Corporation cites, the Supreme Court ordered an employer to reverse a decision it made without bargaining with the union on the basis that the change was “in line with the company’s longstanding practice.” According to the court’s decision, “there simply is no way in such case for a union to know whether or not there has been a substantial departure from past practice.”
“That’s the piece of it that we feel is a violation of federal law,” Gabe said regarding both respective decisions.
Langer and Blenkush did not provide direct comment on The Mac Weekly’s question about whether they knew that students’ unionization could raise legal questions about changes to student employment. Blenkush sent The Mac Weekly the bullet-pointed email that Langer had initially sent to MUWU.
Work-study changes
In the Mac Daily on Monday, April 7, in the second half of a paragraph titled “Apply Now: Campus Jobs for Summer and Academic Year,” Student Employment announced that “all entry-level positions on campus will be reserved for work-study students only.” This announcement followed a statement of Student Employment’s existing prioritization of students with work-study, as well as an explanation that reserving entry-level positions for work-study students comes “in an effort to ensure work-study students have the opportunity to find employment and work their full awards.”
Currently, when departments want to hire a student without work-study, they often keep the position open for a few weeks. Students without work-study can start work if no student with work-study is hired for the position during a waiting period. This practice prioritizes hiring students with work-study but allows students without work-study to hold jobs on campus.
“The student employment program has always been and remains first and foremost a financial aid program for those students who receive a work award as part of their financial aid package,” Langer wrote in her email to MUWU.
Entry-level positions currently held by students without work-study will need to be opened up to students with work-study for the 2025-26 school year.
Anna-Lies Voorham ’28 works three shifts a week as a building manager at Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel, where she helps supervise and run events, cleans up and generally ensures that people can use the space safely. She does not have work-study.
The same day as the Mac Daily announcement, Voorham’s supervisor told her that, due to the policy change, she would not be able to re-hire Voorham for the 2025-26 school year.
“I was really upset,” Voorham said. “I love my job so[much]. I’ve met so many people there, and it’s been really great. I found the financial security of having a job to be so nice, [so] I was really emotional.”
Earlier in the semester, Voorham told her supervisor she planned on returning to her job next year. She had been operating under the assumption that those plans would go undisturbed, so she had not applied for any other jobs for the 2025-26 school year.
Voorham discussed the situation with Student Employment staff. She found the conversation difficult.
“I was being treated like [this situation] was a policy change, which it certainly was,” Voorham said. “But it was also a policy change that left me without a job, and I don’t think it was being treated with that gravity.”
Leonard Center cuts hours of operation
On March 26, Macalester students received an email in the Mac Daily stating that the LC would shorten its hours of operation until the end of the semester, effective immediately.
The LC, formerly open Monday-Thursday from 6:30 a.m. to midnight, will now close earlier, at 10 p.m. The building will close at 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. on Fridays and at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. on Saturdays. Sunday’s hours have not changed.
Ron Osterman, assistant athletic director/facilities, cited budget issues as the main reason for the reduction in building hours.
“The college is well on pace to go extraordinarily over budget for student employment this year,” Osterman said. “So [staff from the Student Employment and Administration and Finance Divisions] have been meeting with a number of different Student Employment departments to discuss some things that we might be able to consider to deal with this extreme budget situation.”
According to Osterman, Blenkush and a member of Macalester’s Administration and Finance Division came to him to ask about the possibility of reducing the LC’s hours to save money from student employment costs.
“So one of the things that was asked of us to consider was, at this time of the year, is there [high enough] usage during, the 10 [p.m.] to midnight [block] that the building was open, to justify spending that amount of money out of our student employment budget,” Osterman said.
Osterman then met with Athletic Director and Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Donnie Brooks, outlining the possibility of shortening the LC’s hours. Osterman mentioned to Brooks in this meeting that historically, during the spring season, there is less traffic in the LC.
According to Osterman, Brooks then went to Macalester’s Senior Leadership Team to tell them about the proposal of reducing the LC’s hours, to which they gave the go-ahead.
“This is the first time that we’re doing [the change in hours],” Osterman said. “We’ll see how it goes over. I’m working with the student employment office because they are struggling with how much money is being spent at [wages of] $15.97 an hour, and probably looking at an increase in the minimum wage again.”
“We understand that this change may be frustrating for some students, and we’re committed to monitoring its impact,” Brooks wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “We’ll be gathering feedback and are open to adjusting the hours again, especially as we head into the colder months [next fall].”
Osterman explained that, with nearly 200 student employees, “the Athletics department is easily the highest expenditure in student employment of all of the departments across campus,” and that at the LC last semester, it was “very difficult to staff the Friday and Saturday night six-to-nine shifts.”
Osterman estimated that of the 200 employees, about 110 work as athletic assistants.
Athletic Assistant Cait Lopata ’26, who has a work-study award, explained that athletic assistants are primarily responsible for working the front desk at the LC, including making sure students tap their Macalester ID cards to sign in to the building, answering phone calls and game management tasks.
Osterman explained that the building hour changes were communicated to student employees on whentowork.com, the software workers use to schedule about 90 percent of shifts in the LC.
While Osterman claims to have sent an email informing student employees about the reduction in hours, Lopata says that she never received one.
“I found out in the moment,” Lopata said. “I just happened to pick up a shift because I had some extra time from 3 [p.m.] to 6 [p.m.] on a Friday. And as I sat down, my boss was telling the shift supervisor that we were closing at 6 [p.m.], and he had put it in the Mac [Daily], but not a lot of people knew.”
Lopata subsequently got in contact with Gabe to discuss the effects the hour changes may have on her employment as an athletic assistant. Lopata has recently become more involved in MUWU organizing.
In February of her sophomore year, Lopata began working an off-campus position to make money outside of her work-study position. For her, the recent building hour changes were a part of a larger struggle to find enough work at the LC.
“[It felt] bad, especially because I’ve already struggled to get hours at the LC,” Lopata said. “Over the past year, they’ve been cutting positions, or cutting hours at positions. So for them to completely cut building hours … was terrible to find out.”
Osterman stressed that there are many other positions available within the Athletics department besides athletic assistant. Some of these available shifts include doing team laundry, game management or sports information work.
“We feel like we provide a good opportunity for students to earn their work-study award in the athletic department,” Osterman said. “Yes, working at the desk and working in the fitness center is one of those options, it’s not the only option, and if you’re motivated to earn your work-study award, full work-study award in the athletic department, you will have no problem earning [it].”
MUWU currently has several petitions circulating about reinstating previous policies around hiring students without work-study and around LC hours.
