Student Senate is in favor of the proposed formation of an RA union
Ohio University’s Student Senate supports the proposed formation of an RA union.
The decision to support the initiative came after a resolution in favor of unionization passed without opposition at Wednesday’s meeting.
Five senators, who are also resident assistants, abstained from voting.
OU resident assistants are attempting to form a union in hopes that higher wages, a more concrete discipline process and more say in the placement and rehire process can be achieved, according to a previous Post article.
Increasing the wages of student workers has been a major goal of Student Senate this year.
David Logan, an OU alum and president of Local 1699 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), spoke to senators on behalf of AFSCME, which represents all service workers at the university.
“They’re there at 3 a.m., telling me what the issue is and what’s going on,” said Logan, who said he does maintenance work for the university. “To me the RAs are really our first responders.”
Anna Lippincott, a junior studying journalism and political science, voiced her concern about Senate’s support of the issue.
“Unions are a highly political issue,” said Lippincott. “I don’t vote on senate members based on their political ideology.”
Several senators at the meeting were witnessed laughing while Lippincott spoke.
OU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has also shown their support for RA unionization with a petition that was posted on their website Sunday.
“We support students’ democratic right to organize as employees,” Kevin Mattson, a history professor and president of OU-AAUP, said in an email. “We wanted to show our support and call on the administration to not intervene in this process of democratic organizing.”
The petition currently has more than 25 signatures, all from OU faculty members.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, OU student Leah Wilson spoke about Take Back the Tap, a movement that advocates “ban the bottle.”
The group, which will soon be an official student organization, will promote tap water over bottled water with a goal of protecting essential water resources.
OU has a contract with Pepsi that requires the university to buy a certain number of water bottles per year, Wilson said.
LGBTQA Affairs Commissioner Ryant Taylor also spoke about a letter to the editor featured in The Post Wednesday, which addressed one senator’s view on the ways senate has “failed” students.
“The blood bucket challenge was unapologetic?” Taylor said in response to one of the points raised in the letter. “That’s freedom of speech in this country, frankly. Calling the blood bucket challenge unapologetic is just basically telling people that they shouldn’t make other people uncomfortable by stating their opinion.”
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