Around 50 students marched from the AGC steps to JSC Studenmund in support of the student workers’ union demands at 11:30 a.m. March 6. Students chanted slogans critical of Occidental administration and supportive of a tuition freeze, divestment and workers’ rights at the march, which was organized by Rising Occidental Student Employees (ROSE), the student group affiliated with the union. After students entered JSC Studenmund, a bargaining session between the student workers’ union and the college took place.
Telefund bargaining representative Casey Scott (sophomore) said the main purpose of the march was to show the students’ power to the administration.
“We already have an audience with the college, but that audience hasn’t been receptive to the things that the student body and the student-working body wants,” Scott said. “And so we’re showing our power, that we’re a united front.”
When student workers chose to unionize in April 2024, two units of 842 and 242 eligible student workers respectively voted 365-65 and 123-18 in favor of forming a union, according to the Information for Student Workers page on Occidental’s website.
Scott said the college’s counterproposals to the Free Speech and Sanctuary Campus articles introduced by the union were watered down.
According to Siena Cawrse (sophomore), a student worker at the Office of Donor Relations who is not a bargaining representative, the college is bargaining in good faith, but their counterproposals to the unions’ demands are not sufficient.
Cawrse said they were present at a bargaining session where the college’s counterproposal to the union’s Sanctuary Campus article, re-named “Protection of Private information,” was projected onto a screen with most of the union’s proposal struck-through.
“That feels almost like the college is saying ‘There’s not much more we want to do to protect our students and make this a safe environment for learning and for work,'” Cawrse said.
The Protection of Private Information counterproposal states that the college will comply with existing state legislation to prevent the unnecessary disclosure of student workers’ information and promote a safe-environment for students regardless of nationality or immigration status.
Miles Vail (sophomore), who works as a stage tech and is not directly involved in bargaining, said the march is a way to involve student workers and the rest of the student body at Occidental and show student support to the administration.
“This is just a moment when we can really demonstrate a really strong and moving type of collective power,” Vail said.
Contact James Miller at jmiller4@oxy.edu
