What's new: Grinnell College student workers will vote Friday whether to OK a strike.

Why? Union members are frustrated that college officials won't meet with them after voting to organize campusewide.

What you need to know:

Student-worker union members will vote Friday on whether to authorize a strike

Grinnell officials refuse to meet with the student-worker union

Strike would not affect public safety or health services

Less than 2 percent of Grinnell's expenses are spent on student wages

Grinnell College student-worker union members will vote Friday on whether to authorize a strike, an action that could make it difficult to operate facilities on campus such as the dining hall, library and recreation center.

A student activist said it’s unclear whether there is support for a work stoppage that could last up to three days. However, if students vote to strike, the move must be authorized by the union’s leadership, said Cory McCartan, a senior who was instrumental in starting the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers and now is the group’s adviser.

“We want the leadership of the college to wake up and realize that they can’t ignore this initiative,” McCartan said.

Union members estimate about 350 students work in dining services and about 800 others work in other jobs around campus. About 600 students are union members, they said.

Debra Lukehart, Grinnell's vice president of communications, said in a statement to the Des Moines Register that officials support "the rights of students to protest or demonstrate" as long as it's peaceful and doesn't impede access to buildings or interfere with classwork.

"This kind of engaged citizenship is key to Grinnell's mission," Lukehart wrote in the statement, adding that Grinnell officials have taken steps to ensure "core services" will continue in case of a work stoppage.

If a strike occurs, the college's public safety and health services departments would not be affected, McCartan said.

Union members are frustrated that Grinnell officials — including president Raynard Kington — refuse to meet with students after they voted overwhelmingly in November to organize campuswide.

Grinnell officials opposed the Nov. 27 vote and were unsuccessful in their attempt to halt the election.

College officials have said they will ask the National Labor Relations Board to void the election.

The day after the vote, the union presented a pay proposal as well as an outline of provisions that pledge the group won’t infringe on the faculty’s ability to hire student research assistants or on student privacy rights.

Kington, in a response distributed campuswide, wrote that the college would not negotiate with the group during the appeal. Grinnell “legally cannot bargain or discuss a framework agreement,” Kington wrote.

The student group, in a statement released to the Register, described Kington’s response as “completely and laughably false.”

The group noted that the New York City law firm Grinnell hired to fight the formation of a student union negotiated an agreement between Columbia’s graduate student union and the university while an appeal was pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

“There’s nothing in the rules of law that says they can’t bargain with us,” McCartan said. “They’re just creating smokescreens.”

Lukehart, in her statement to the Register, wrote that college officials disagree, saying the "NLRB has made clear that an employer waives certain appeal rights if it bargains prior to or during its appeal. Grinnell is not willing to do this."

An NLRB decision in 2016 opened the door for students at private colleges to organize. The board, which was then controlled by Democrats, ruled that Columbia’s student assistants were employees under federal law.

That decision allowed student workers at private universities to organize. (The organization of student work groups at public universities is governed by state bargaining laws.)

The NLRB is now controlled by Republicans, two of whom have said they would like to revisit the Columbia ruling.

Grinnell is a private liberal arts college with about 1,670 students. Less than 2 percent of Grinnell’s expenses — about $2 million — is spent on student wages, according to a brief filed with the NLRB.

How we got here

Here is some background to the Grinnell College student workers union and its friction with college officials:

Grinnell student workers in 2016 voted to form a dining workers union, becoming one of the nation’s only independent undergraduate student labor unions on a private college campus. A year later, they notified college officials of their plans to expand the union.

Grinnell administrators in November stated that they supported the dining workers union because "their work is standardized, routine work carried out in regular shifts."

Grinnell student workers in November voted to expand the union campuswide.

School officials stated they opposed an expansion of the union because it would "negatively impact Grinnell’s mission and culture."

Grinnell officials plan to ask the National Labor Relations Board to void the election's results. In the meantime, school officials won’t meet with union leaders to reach a bargaining agreement.

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