On May 21, a “supermajority” of participating Dartmouth Undergraduate Advisors voted 43 to 6 in favor of unionization, according to SWCD vice chair Hosaena Tilahun ’25, who also serves as a UGA. The students will now begin a negotiating and bargaining process with the school.
According to Tilahun, the UGAs voted to unionize under the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth. The 87.8% majority was verified by the National Labor Relations Board “Tally of Ballots,” which was obtained by The Dartmouth.
“This is just the first stage of increasing union density on campus and making sure that students have alternative and more powerful ways to democratically engage with politics on campus,” Tilahun said.
The vote comes following a Jan. 25 open letter published by UGAs and the SWCD on the SWCD website — addressed to the “Office of Residential Life, leadership and the broader community” — detailing their intent to unionize. The authors’ demands included training improvements, guaranteed housing, an increased stipend and more resources for residents, according to Tilahun.
Following the letter’s release, 70% of the UGA workforce signed union cards to be represented by the SWCD, Tilahun said. More than 30% of the workforce was required to sign the card in order to proceed with an election, according to Tilahun.
Tilahun said she believes that many of SWCD’s plans are “in concert” with local and national union growth, as well as a labor movement “increasingly led by college students across the nation.”
“We see ourselves as taking part — a small part — in much larger coordinated efforts of solidarity, as well as political action, that [are] based in the conditions of working people,” she said.
