Catherwood LibraryILR School

After months of trying to prevent its undergraduate resident advisors from organizing (see WIT for Feb. 22, 2002), officials of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst yesterday announced that they will recognize United Auto Workers Local 2322 which earlier this year won a union representation election and was certified by the state labor board. Although UMass had long opposed unionization of student workers as a threat to academic traditions and focus---a position in which the university has been vocally supported, and joined, by officers at universities across the country---the university?s new chancellor has shown an openness to working with student-employee unions. The main forces behind the university?s abrupt reversal on the issue, however, were certification of Local 2322, the growing possibility of labor unrest from other unions in support of the RA?s, and the desire to secure RA cooperation and labor peace in the midst of budget related faculty shortages and unrest (see yesterday?s WIT).