Student Housing Staff at Bowdoin College Launch Union Drive with OPEIU 153

On Wednesday, 82 percent of Bowdoin College’s student residential staff submitted a petition to President Safa Zaki to announce their formation of a union with OPEIU-153 and to demand voluntary recognition of that union.

Bowdoin College Student Residential Staff are undergraduate student workers whom the college has hired to live in the dorms and oversee anywhere between 10 and 50 residents. Although the job is advertised as 7-12 hours per week, some staff have found that the position has become overwhelming and are working more weekly hours than the job prescribes. Meant to serve as a touchstone between residents and campus resources, Student Residential Staff live where they work. This often leads to the blurring of lines between work life and personal life.

To maintain their jobs, Student Residential Staff attend weekly mandatory staff meetings, attend weekly meetings with the other residential workers in their building, maintain a weekly floor-wide dinner, design and implement community building programming, and work five-hour long shifts several times a semester during which they are expected to patrol every dorm building bathroom on a hourly basis. During uncompensated summer training sessions, Student Residential Staff are expected to attend daily mandatory presentations and training workshops, with some days running 12 hours long. Above all, the Student Residential Staff serve as their residents’ emotional and mental support throughout the academic year, in addition to their strictly defined job duties and academic responsibilities.

“This last year, I have worked on average anywhere from 4-6 on-campus and off-campus jobs. Last winter, I was working nearly twenty hours on campus and six hours off. This was done out of basic economic need, despite being on full aid from the college,” said proctor Sam Turrigiano ’26. “I needed to work to cover textbooks and living expenses as well as ensure that when the summer came, I could afford rent, groceries, and other costs of living that I may have while not at Bowdoin. I work twenty hours, and often more, at jobs I do truly enjoy. However, no student should have to work this much, in this many jobs, to make ends meet and fully enjoy their college experience. Such a high-stress job like ResLife ought to be enough. I think about the students who are not on full aid, and the fact that if this is barely enough for me, it can’t be enough for them.”

Despite all this work, stipends are still several thousand dollars short of covering the cost of housing. Even though they are responsible for two separate residential spaces, a Residential Assistant earns only $3,600 per year. A Proctor, living on a floor of a first-year brick and at times providing near round-the-clock support, earns only $4,680 per year. Even student Head Staff, who are responsible for the entire building, its residents, and multiple student workers, earn only $6,900 a year.

“I remember being confused when I first heard that student residential staff at Bowdoin are not compensated for the value of room and board,” said proctor Patrick Sullivan, ’26. “I was even more confused when I opened my offer letter to be a proctor – $4,678 for the full year. Then I learned that other NESCAC student residential staff have organized, including Tufts and Wesleyan. RAs at Tufts University receive compensation equal to the value of free housing (an estimated value of $10,518), plus a stipend of $1,425 and 80 meal swipes per semester. Wesleyan University pays their student residential staff between $7,828 and $9,787 per year. The difference between Bowdoin ResLife pay and that of comparable schools is an embarrassment and must change.”

As of last academic year, the cost of housing at Bowdoin College is $8,050 and food is an additional $9,202. This job, positioned as one of the most stressful on campus, does not cover the cost of the room it requires. In a town with a housing crisis, off-campus housing is neither guaranteed by the college (the application is a lottery) nor an affordable option for most students. Further, many students take on a Student Residential job as a means of financial assistance to allow them to attend the College, where tuition is over $64,000 per year and the total cost of attendance amounts to $82,600.

By unionizing, the Bowdoin Student Residential Staff hopes to gain more power over their labor and achieve security and stability for themselves and future student residential staff. This will be the first group of unionized workers in the long history of Bowdoin College. In 2020, Bowdoin housekeepers launched a unionization effort that was ultimately unsuccessful.

“We, the Bowdoin Student Residential Staff, are moving to take power into our own hands,” said R.A. Luke Robinson ’26. “Our current work contract does not justly compensate our work efforts and ensures that Student Residential Staff have very little control over their pay structure. It gives broad, sweeping power to the Office of Residential Life and the Office of Student Aid, who have failed to meet the rising costs of living and demands of this job.”

College Refuses to Recognize Student Workers, Hires Anti-Union Firm

On Friday, the Bowdoin College administration refused to voluntarily recognize the union, so there will be an official union election facilitated by the Nation Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This election will offer Bowdoin Student Residential Staff the opportunity to reaffirm their support for the union. Unfortunately, Bowdoin has been fighting dirty and has hired the union busting firm Littler Mendelson — the same firm that Starbucks hired to break unions at its stores. The Bowdoin Student Residential Staff are demanding that the college not employ deceptive, manipulative, and unethical union-busting tactics, and instead, let the student workers form an educated decision on their terms.

For more updates you can follow the Bowdoin student workers @bowdoinreslifeunion on Instagram.