Swarthmore RAs join student-worker organizing wave, following in Penn RAs’ footsteps

Resident assistants (RAs) at Swarthmore College are trying to organize, and they submitted a petition to president Valerie Smith on Monday asking for voluntary recognition of their union.

The college has 56 RAs, and 93% of them signed the petition, according to Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 153, the union they’re looking to join. They would be the first unionized workers at Swarthmore in the college’s history, according to the union.

RAs are undergraduate student workers who live on campus and oversee the residents of their dorms. Their duties include organizing monthly programs for residents; taking 12-hour on-call shifts several times per semester; assisting with move-in and move-out inspections; and attending weekly staff meetings, biweekly meetings with supervisors, and monthly trainings.

Swarthmore spokesperson Cara Anderson acknowledged that the college received notice from a union representative Monday about the RAs’ interest in forming a union and said the college is reviewing that information.

“Swarthmore’s resident assistants are valuable members of the community who serve an important role in supporting the residential experience we offer students,” Anderson said. University leaders “are committed to ensuring that our resident assistants are treated fairly and equitably.”

The college’s job description for RAs says the role requires 15 to 20 hours a week. But RAs joining the union say that’s not an accurate description of the time commitment.

“Being an RA is a demanding role, and one that takes up already scarce free time as a student,” said Yebo Moyo, an RA since 2022. “While this fact may be verbally acknowledged, our employers continue to fill our plates with excessive meetings, training, tasks, and other time commitments that do not improve our abilities to perform in our position.”

In exchange for their work, the RAs get a stipend equal to the cost of housing, which is about $9,500 annually. But the pay is taxed so it ends up not fully covering housing costs, the union says. And RAs are not paid extra for taking on additional shifts, covering for a colleague, or handling an unforeseen resident issue outside of their on-call hours.

“I’ve realized that the compensation for the role is severely inadequate,” said Mikaela Gonzalez, who became an RA this year. “Additionally, the excessive meetings and trainings place a heavy emphasis on how the RAs will be reprimanded if they fail at their duties, failing to factor in extenuating circumstances or the fact that RAs also have personal lives.”

Swarthmore has just under 1,700 students, 95% of whom live on campus in the college’s 18 residence halls. Annual fees — including tuition, room, and board — total over $80,000, and just over half of students receive need-based financial aid.

If successful, the Swarthmore RAs will follow in the steps of resident assistants at University of Pennsylvania, who formed the first Philadelphia-area RA union in September, also with OPEIU Local 153. Penn is in the midst of an organizing wave: More than 1,400 medical residents at Penn Medicine formed a union in the spring, and more than 4,500 of graduate student instructors and researchers are currently pursuing a union election.

RAs have been similarly organizing labor unions at U.S. universities, including at Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Wesleyan, Columbia, and Tufts, after a 2016 NLRB ruling paved the way for student workers at private colleges to unionize. Those at many public colleges already had that right under state laws.