RAs of the World, Unite!

DAVID BRUNEAU/AP
University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst, Mass.

They are the staff sergeants and big siblings of dorm life. They live in that large room down the hall, telling younger students, "It's the third building on the right" or "Now cut that out!" These resident assistants (RAs) are rarely the biggest stars on campus--but now at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, they have the most muscle. Union muscle, that is. At Umass-Amherst, RAs may be stashing their Strokes CDs and joining in a chorus of Solidarity Forever.

This month the words student union acquired a more militant ring when the RAs voted to affiliate with United Auto Workers Local 2322. They became the nation's first group of unionized undergraduate employees, after the university, which opposed unionization, lost a ruling before the Massachusetts labor-relations commission. The vote forges a bond between Generation Y2K and the graying labor movement.

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Umass is not alone. This week undergrad teaching assistants at Columbia University are voting on union affiliation. The results, which may not be known for months, will be appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, by either Columbia or the U.A.W. A ruling by a national board in the union's favor could have an even broader impact than the state ruling in the Amherst case. Then the dorm fight goes nationwide.

After the Umass vote, the student center rang with chants of "Union! Union!" But joy was not unanimous; neither was the vote. Of 360 students, only 138 pulled the union lever; nearly as many didn't vote. "Now we're a union. Big deal," says Stacey Kazinskas, 20, a Umass junior who opposes the union. "Collective bargaining can get us in a lot of trouble. We're taking stuff that's guaranteed and putting it on the table to bargain with."

Umass RAs each receive a $5,100 compensation package, most of which goes to a room-cost deduction; students say they are left with $50 in cash each week. RAs' perks--large solo rooms, free Internet access--will probably be at risk when the new union makes its expected demand for a pay raise. Union organizers argue that these threats existed before the vote. "Last semester an RA got fired because he missed a single staff meeting," says junior Cristal Cruz, 20, an RA and a union supporter. "It showed me we had no say and no security."

This is just Round 1 in a long fight. University officials are considering an appeal to the state even as they threaten job cutbacks and increased dorm fees for all students. Says Kay Scanlan, spokeswoman for Umass: "We could change the program. We could refuse to bargain. We can go to court."

The unionizing of college grinds jibes with the aims of AFL-CIO boss John Sweeney--who has urged the organizing of overseas sweatshop operations and amnesty drives for illegal immigrants--and of the U.A.W. The autoworkers' union also represents the curatorial staff at New York City's Museum of Modern Art; two years ago, it unionized teaching assistants at New York University.

The idea is to broaden the reach of labor and make it fresh for the emerging generation of workers. Their grandparents belonged to unions; their parents didn't; now some of the kids do. "Even if they never join a union again, they'll be voters sensitized to working-class issues," James Shaw, president of Local 2322, says of the Umass students. "This is a symbol that labor is back."

Back from way back: union membership in the private sector has dipped from 35% in the mid-'50s to 9% today. The U.A.W. is also losing some of its traditional members. Last fall Nissan autoworkers in Tennessee voted down union representation nearly 2 to 1. "It's a bit ironic that the mighty U.A.W. failed to gain votes from autoworkers," says David Denholm, president of the Public Service Research Foundation, an antiunion group, "and now it's making a big deal about representing a couple hundred dorm monitors."

The U.A.W. may be looking to the young and the restless as much in desperation as in hope; if it continues to be better at organizing scholars and curators than machinists and welders, it will soon be the United (Anything but) Auto Workers. But that may be an early clue to the new direction. Today hall monitors, tomorrow...cheerleaders? And how about the athletes, who generate billions of dollars in college and TV revenue? If the top jocks start chanting "Union! Union!", the halls of ivy could tremble from the roar.