Catherwood LibraryILR School

Following a ruling by the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission that the 365 undergraduate resident advisors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst are in fact workers, a union representation vote has been scheduled for next month to officially authorize the United Auto Workers (UAW) as their exclusive bargaining representative. The ruling resulted after the university administration---which bitterly opposes the unionization of its RA?s---responded to a petition submitted by the United Auto Workers on behalf of seventy-five percent of the advisors by claiming that RA?s are students, not employees, and that it did not have to recognize the union. The RA?s initially approached the UAW because of its success in organizing and representing graduate assistants at the college, and because of a bureaucratic system that they feel treats them like employees while not paying them fairly for their time-consuming, tiring, and sometimes dangerous job.