Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism.
The Dartmouth
May 1, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Tilahun, Stawarz and Richardson: For Student Workers, Dartmouth’s ‘Final Offer’ is No Win

ICE off Campus and Protect Our Workers NOW.

As of April 21, the College has refused to bargain with our union in any further negotiating sessions. They have also refused to extend the current Dartmouth Dining student worker contract. What this means is that the College’s legal counsel rejected meeting with our rank-and-file, student-led bargaining team moving forward, making it more challenging to contractually preserve many of our vital protections for student workers, such as hour and workload security, discipline and discharge, and grievance protections for student workers seeking to resolve issues with their employer. In sum, the College has refused to protect key benefits for hundreds of student workers — especially against law enforcement officials and the rising cost of tuition.

At our final bargaining session on April 17, the College claimed it offered the Student Workers Collective at Dartmouth their best and final offer that “go[es] beyond what Dartmouth is legally required to offer.” In reality, Dartmouth’s proposal fails to meaningfully protect international students and student workers, and fails to address our union’s most important demands. The SWCD demands action, not performance. Here’s what we have proposed to the College, and what they haven’t addressed: 

First, establish funds for legal assistance, gender-affirming care, emergency health-care, and travel-reimbursement for student workers.

Second, provide UGAs paid training, cover housing and meals, and a livable stipend that matches at least the minimum $21 per hour base wage SWCD established for our dining workers in our 2023 contract. While the College purports to meet this standard, their math includes an Ivy Unlimited meal plan credit in their hourly calculation. For many UGAs on financial aid, the Ivy Unlimited Plan is included within financial aid assistance, and thus effectively deducted from the stipend sum. Since UGAs are required to live on campus with their residents, and thus have a meal plan, this is a job requirement rather than gracious compensation and thus should not be considered part of their wage calculation. 

Third, prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from accessing Dartmouth’s private facilities — including academic buildings and residence halls — without a warrant signed by a district court judge. We are demanding that Dartmouth do everything in its legal power to protect non-citizen and international students. Dartmouth rejected this proposal along with our legal assistance fund despite comparable sanctuary campus agreements existing at Yale’s Unite-Here 33, and at The New School’s union, UAW Local 7902. Here at Dartmouth, Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth, our sister union, won a $50,0000 legal assistance fund for international employees, upgrading to $55,000 in 2025 and eventually $60,0000 in 2026. This is possible. This is winnable.

The concessions made in the College's final offer? Most — including holiday pay, increased compensation for Dartmouth Dining and UGA workers and an expansion of paid time off and mental health protections —  were already won by SWCD through months of hard-fought negotiations in 2022-2023 and at the bargaining table these past seven months. 

On that point, our unit has requested and SWCD has continued to fight for comprehensive bereavement leave. When student workers face the death of a loved one, they deserve 1-3 weeks paid leave. Dartmouth's insulting offer? Use existing paid time off — typically just 2-6 hours per term. We are also demanding protection from religious discrimination. Last summer, the Office of Residential Life rescinded a Muslim UGA’s job offer after they simply requested a housing placement with a half-bath for wudu — ritual cleansing before prayer. We demanded Dartmouth comply with basic non-discrimination law. Their response? Silence.

For context, SWCD is independent, student-run and the nation’s fifth undergraduate labor union. We are fighting legal battles as unpaid undergraduates with classes and jobs, sitting across the tables from professional, salaried lawyers. SWCD fought for increased stipends for undergraduate advisors and continues to demand that Dartmouth provide real, material support for international students and workers — not empty promises or references to on-campus resources we know are insufficient. 

Within hours of stepping out of the bargaining room on April 17, The Dartmouth asked for SWCD’s statement on the College’s final proposal. We requested more time to respond because careful deliberation among the leaders of our unit is necessary to properly formulate a response and to update our members about our bargaining session. Instead of accommodating this request, The Dartmouth published its coverage of the event based on the College’s misleading statement, while neglecting to mention our key demands the College had refused to address. This effectively helped further the administration’s agenda against our union, and we reject this callous representation of our struggle for student worker protections. 

Want more of our side of the story? Meet our organizing committee Mondays at 8 p.m. in Carson 61.

Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.