The United Professional and Service Employees Union is spearheading an effort to allow for the unionization of student food service workers at Binghamton University.

Bargaining on behalf of public service workers since 1986, the union touts around 30,000 members across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut. It represents a variety of employees, including social workers, clerical workers, nurses, librarians and food-service workers — including those at BU.

Following recent actions by the National Labor Relations Board, the union is now looking to organize student workers at the University. Paul Iachetta, a labor representative, described why unionization is a critical step for student food-service workers at BU.

“First and foremost, the whole campus is virtually all union workers,” Iachetta said in a Nov. 26 interview with Pipe Dream. “The students are probably the only ones who don’t have a union, and they make considerably less than what our union workers make for doing the same or similar jobs that they’re doing here at the University. Typically, union workers are better paid, have better benefits [and] better recourse when it comes to disciplinary process and grievance processes. So it’s something that we’ve been looking at for a long time. It’s just something that wasn’t able to be done until recently.”

In 2016, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that student assistants are protected employees under the National Labor Relations Act — overturning a 2004 decision holding that these student workers were not covered. The board reasoned that students working in paid positions at universities should be treated as “employees” under the statute and that legal protection is “not foreclosed by the existence of some other, additional [educational] relationship.”

The board, in early 2021, withdrew a 2019 rule that would have excluded private university students working as teaching or research assistants from the act’s protection. It released new guidance on how student privacy rights can be protected under federal law earlier this year, while still requiring colleges and universities to share certain information about the student body to labor unions.

More than 50,000 student workers have been unionized since 2022, according to the board. This includes international students, who are able to participate in labor organizing activities regardless of immigration status.

Nearly a decade ago, the union led several campus protests before reaching a tentative contract with Sodexo for better pay and benefits. Iachetta indicated that relations have since improved and noted that regular meetings are held between labor and on-campus management.

To reach student workers at dining halls and other facilities, the union plans on leading an organizing campaign, hoping to then reach out to Sodexo and seek voluntary recognition of the unionized workers. Iachetta said the organizing campaign will also rely on the assistance of union stewards that represent the interests of unionized BU food-service workers. Sodexo did not respond to Pipe Dream’s request for comment.

The union’s push for organizing student food service employees follows similar efforts across the country at colleges and universities. In April, library and food service workers at Syracuse University voted to recognize their organization efforts through the Service Employees International Union — made up of both graduate and undergraduate students.

Iachetta expressed his hope that Sodexo would recognize the student worker union once all requirements have been met.

“It’s a democratic process,” Iachetta said. “You have to have 50 percent plus one to be able to unionize a group. So, we hope that Sodexo recognizes that if, in fact, we’re able to get that number, that it’s something students want, and they should be able to move forward and deal with it.”