CLARK UNIVERSITY GOES TO WAR AGAINST HIGHER EDUCATION
CLARK UNIVERSITY GOES TO WAR AGAINST HIGHER EDUCATION
On February 21, Clark University told its more than 680 undergraduate workers that they don’t deserve well-established employee benefits or protections. Furthermore, that Clark would challenge the hard-fought 2016 NLRB Colombia decision which finally allowed all graduate and undergraduate workers to organize. If the decision is successfully overturned, it would strip the rights of tens of thousands of graduate and undergraduate workers who have won elections, bargained for contracts, and brought up standards for higher education throughout the country.
Teamsters Local 170 and our student worker/union alliance is not going to let that happen. We demand that the university sign a neutrality card check agreement with the undergraduate workers and Teamsters Local 170. Such an agreement will empower the workers to decide whether to form a representative union.
“The Teamsters will never back down from a fight,” said Shannon George, Local 170 Principal Officer. “We wanted to resolve this in a way that works for both parties but clearly compromise isn’t in Clark University’s vocabulary.”
Clark and its attorney stonewalled attempts to reach an election agreement. Rather than attempt to reach a solution that works for both parties, they are blocking all traditional organizing options. By so doing, they would get Clark’s name on a labor decision that turns the clock back to the bad old days of prior generations of exploited workers and union busting. The result? Denying basic norms all at the expense of thousands of student workers struggling to pay their tuition and limit their debt.
Clark University advertises to prospective students that they, “challenge convention… change the world.” Sadly, the university’s misguided goal is to reverse decades of hard-fought worker success for respect and dignity.
“Clark has told every single one of its employees that it does not value them or their hard work, day in and day out,” said Thomas G. Mari, Teamsters Joint Council 10 New England Secretary-Treasurer. “There are more than 800 workers at Clark that are also students. These workers take out trash, open buildings, work in the library, take care of grounds, admissions and a bunch of other areas. They keep the school running but Clark University leaders seem to have forgotten the integral role they play.”
