BU ResLife Union

If you have questions or concerns that aren’t addressed here, reach out to your neighborhood union representative.

A Resident Life (ResLife) union is made up of student workers who help ensure that students who live on campus are safe and supported. As BU ResLife workers, we serve on-call shifts, respond to resident emergencies and housing issues, and connect residents to resources. Thanks to us, 12,000+ BU students can continue living on campus safely and pursuing their degrees!

The ever-increasing tuition paid by these 12,000+ students contribute to the University’s hundreds of millions in profits. Unionizing gives us the power to demand that some of those profits be directed to the ResLife workers who do the care and administrative work that is essential for the University’s continued functioning.

Collective bargaining is the process in which workers negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health, and safety policies. As many ResLife workers have experienced, petitioning hard to our bosses for reasonable changes or protections to our jobs have largely been futile. Individual advocacy can be easily ignored by the University. But when we all demand better conditions together, and use our collective labor (or the withholding of it) as our leverage, BU cannot ignore us. BU cannot function without our labor! 

We can only win a strong contract if we work together. United, we bargain; divided, we beg.

A union contract is a legally binding agreement, known as a “collective bargaining agreement,” formed between the labor union and the employer. It codifies commitments from the employer about wages, working conditions, and job rights. This contract should reflect and address real issues that workers face. How strong of a contract we get depends on how willing we are to fight for it!

Union dues are regular contributions we make to fund the important functions of our union, such as representing ResLife workers facing workplace issues, providing legal counsel, and negotiating new contracts. None of us will pay any union dues until a formal contract is negotiated with BU and approved by a democratic vote of ResLife workers. 

After successfully negotiating a contract and ratifying it with a vote, ResLIfe workers who join the union will begin paying dues at a rate of 1.5% of our compensation. As workers, we would not vote to approve a contract with included raises lower than the cost of our dues. This means that, while union members will contribute a small portion of our compensation to the union, the net benefits of having a union will already far outweigh the cost of dues!

It is illegal for the university to retaliate against its workers for unionizing. Workers’ right to unionize is federally protected by the National Labor Relations Act. You cannot be fired, disciplined, or discriminated against in any way for participating in the union. In fact, it can be illegal for the University to even ask you about your support for or participation in the union.

ResLife workers are negotiating our contract with the high-level administrators who control BU’s coffers, and not with ResLife professional staff! In fact, our direct supervisors have no control over our compensation, benefits, or most of our working conditions, which are the very things we are trying to change. Many supervisors are in support of the changes we are fighting for. Our contract demands aim to create a better and more sustainable work environment not only for ResLife student workers, but for ResLife as a whole organization.

No. As a member of the union, you are the ResLife Union. You decide how your union is run, and we all strive to make decisions democratically and with great care.

Striking is the workers’ most powerful weapon, and not to be taken lightly. That’s why it generally requires a majority vote to authorize a strike, and often unions choose to strike only with a super majority. Ultimately, it is the workers in the union who chose whether to strike, and our choice alone. No staff member, lawyer, or anyone outside of our bargaining unit can force you to strike. But if ResLife workers do decide to strike, we would need everyone’s help to make it as effective as possible.