By Daniel A. C. McBride
Opinion Editor
This April, following almost two decades of dialogue, protest, and continuous advocacy, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation granting graduate student assistants at the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland: Baltimore County the right to collectively bargain. This was a genuine milestone: for years, UMD administrators testified that treating graduate workers as employees would poison the dynamic of mentorship that defines academia.
The graduate students disagreed, organizing and advocating for bargaining rights until the state code followed. Their bargaining unit will not take effect until July 2028, and the win came bruised by amendments organizers did not want. But the door, which had once been tightly shut, is now open.
Here is the detail that should make excite Washington College students: that door was only closed due to UMD’s standing as a state institution. Maryland law does not guarantee collective bargaining rights to student workers at public universities, which is the impetus for the above legislation predicated upon UMD’s graduate assistants lobbying the state legislature.
Students at private institutions like WC, Hood College, Johns Hopkins University, and more, are protected under federal labor law permitting organization among private workplaces like colleges universities outside of state oversight. That unquestionable right, which UMD’s graduate students spent decades fighting for, is one Washington College students, RAs, tutors, peer mentors, dining and library workers, have possessed all along.
I had no idea we [as WC students] could even form unions,” Peer Mentor junior Joe Atkins, said.
Atkins articulates the importance in student unions clearly.
“[Unions] are important to make sure our rights as student employees are respected as the rights of workers are respected in any other [setting],” Atkins said.
This is not a radical claim, but the claim that a campus paycheck shouldn’t buy fewer protections than a job down the street.
Sarabeth Metzger, a junior and RA, sees the value of unions as clear, and frankly, elementary. When asked whether she would join a union of, perhaps, RAs, she did not hesitate.
“I would; as I have dealt with so much stress, mistrust, and struggle,” Metzger said.
Her account of the job is one where the contract she signed and the material demands of the position tend to drift on occasion.
“It’s easy for Washington College to take advantage of workers,” Metzger said. “Due to limited hours and certain rules [regarding the scope of our work,] it is assumed we are taken care of; I did not sign up to clean broken glass; that’s not what my contract was for.”
This speaks for itself.
Ambiguity surrounding the scope of one’s duties as a student worker leads to said worker being gradualy asked to do more than that understood upon hiring. Because there is no collective outlet through which students may say no, these abuses are often simply absorbed into the normal workflor.
To this end, a union doesn’t need to be adversarial to close that gap, but simply needs to exist so that the boundaries of a job are something collectively refined rather than assumed or chiseled from above.
Many argue, well, limited weekly working hours justifies the lack of such institutions, but this line of reasoning misses the point.
Limited hours, easy and convenient jobs, and varying degrees of administrative pressure are exactly why the union proves such an important institution: a worker, whether 19 or 44, with a distanced, rigid relationship to their employer has the least leverage if something were to go wrong, though dually attains the most benefit from terms made clear.
UMD’s graduate students needed a new law just to get a seat at the table; WC students already own the room in which the table sits.
Photo Caption: WC students find and secure on-campus emplyment through the JobX platform.
Photo by Daniel A. C. McBride