The California State University Employee Union (CSUEU) has plans to expand its work by achieving goals and gaining more support towards a better future for student assistants.
Lexey Jenkins, a music education major at Fresno State and a student organizer with CSUEU, unit 15, explained what has happened so far with student assistants joining the union.
“Last year there was a push for student assistance to become part of this union,” Jenkins said. “The desire for that has been around for awhile, so we just finally had the support and movement to do it.”
According to Jenkins, approximately 7,200 students voted in the election, equalling 97%.
After the vote, student assistants became a part of CSUEU, alongside full-time staff, making Fresno State’s union the largest in the California State University (CSU) system.
“It also made us the largest student assistance union I believe in the U.S. because there is 20,000 student assistants across the CSU system,” Jenkins said.
As of now CSUEU has been bargaining with CSU management for higher paying working conditions for workers, higher wages, sick pay, holiday pay and parking benefits as the main priorities.
Jenkins credits her reason for joining the union to being a student assistant for about two and a half years.
“I have many friends who are also student assistants and just hearing our collective experiences, whether that meant not being able to make ends meet like paying our rent or not being able to buy groceries because we are paid minimum wage…made me empowered to take action,” Jenkins said.
The CSU has been currently exploiting student workers, Jenkins said. However, CSUEU has been fighting that by building a strong union.
The next step the union is taking is getting students to sign up in the fall by launching the largest student worker membership drive in history, Jenkins told The Collegian.
The CSUEU made a post on Instagram recently, highlighting a demand for change and respect from the CSU administrators and advocating that student assistants come together to make a change.
“I hope students feel empowered by it because strong unions win better wages,” Jenkins said.
Focusing on building a collective power, while at the same time showing the CSU management that the union is serious and has student support.
“They think that if they slow negotiations, that students will forget about it,” Jenkins said.
New members can sign up to become part of the union on Sept. 27 at a state wide Zoom meeting that will be sent out that day by email from CSUEU, however it is not the only way student assistants can join.
Jenkins and other members of CSUEU will be going around campus to get student assistants to sign up to receive emails and texts that will go out to all 23 CSU campuses to get more members.
“Only student assistants within the CSU system can become members, however that does not mean that students who are not student assistants can’t support us,” Jenkins said.
Students on campus can show their support by raising awareness to the union and encouraging student assistants on campus to join. The union team at Fresno State has plans to build campus teams to help organize these sign ups.
Representatives have been reaching out to students this week through text messages and emails, encouraging student assistants to sign up for the union and come to meetings.
“There will be an opportunity for everyone to be a part of this collective power and sign their membership card,” Jenkins said.
