When undergraduate resident assistants (RAs) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst vote today on whether to organize, they should cast their ballots against unionization.

Although the Massachusetts Labor Relations Board ruled in January that undergraduate employees could legally unionize, the UMass RAs should recognize that their position is primarily one of leadership—not of work. While most University employees can and should unionize, RAs are not traditional employees, and their arguments for unionization are not as strong.

For workers in many industries, unions perform the necessary role of bargaining to secure fair pay, benefits and safe working conditions. RAs have argued that they need the protection a union offers in their work—caring for undergraduates. However, UMass RAs are already well paid, receiving a small weekly stipend and subsidized housing in exchange for their 20 hours of work a week. And by highlighting the menial aspects of their work, RAs overlook the fact that their job is not fundamentally about cleaning up after a party, but about counseling and guiding students—a job that is both a privilege and a responsibility.

If the UMass RAs do form a union, they will succeed only in changing the relationship between their university and themselves for the worse. RAs currently function as liaisons between the university and students; the tension that often accompanies union negotiations will be detrimental to this relationship. UMass representatives say that if RAs unionize the University may be forced to replace undergraduate RAs with graduate students—a measure that would help no one and would deprive all students of the undergraduate leadership RAs provide. Though some have said this is merely a bargaining tactic by the UMass administration, it appears to be a legitimate threat.

The result of the UMass RAs’ vote will have little effect on Harvard, where proctors and tutors, instead of undergraduate RAs, serve as resident counselors. And of course teaching fellows, whose jobs actually involve teaching and research, should be allowed to form unions. But UMass RAs should recognize that their jobs, unlike the jobs of the autoworkers under whose auspices they propose to form a union, are more about responsibility than reward—and that their concerns should be more paternal than pecuniary.

Dissent: RAs Are Workers Too

All workers, including RAs, have a right to collective bargaining to effect changes when they see fit. The Massachusetts Labor Relations Committee affirmed that right just a month ago. It’s time for UMass to recognize its responsibilities as an employer and stop unfairly threatening its employees.

Undergraduate RAs perform a job in the most fundamental sense of the word. On top of their responsibilities as students, RAs live apart from their peers in dorms among underclass students, providing what amounts to roughly 20 hours a week of service. They are responsible for overseeing the well-being of students, providing guidance, keeping drunk students in order, and even mopping up after rowdy parties.

UMass pays students for doing this job; this compensation amounts to wages for services rendered. The question is whether the university would ever allow unsupervised residential life. Without undergraduate RAs, the university would be forced to hire graduate students or adults for undoubtedly higher wages. If UMass wishes to continue to save money, it must also be willing to sit down at the negotiating table and address the grievances of its student employees.

—George B. Bradt ’05, Phoebe M.W. Kosman ’05,

Nicholas F.B. Smyth ’05 and Benjamin J. Toff ’05