Grinnell Undergraduate Workers Have Won a First Contract
This month at Grinnell College, undergraduate student workers ratified their first contract — the first wall-to-wall undergrad worker union contract in the US. Jacobin spoke to union leaders about the victory.
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Last month, the undergraduate student-worker union at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, became the first wall-to-wall union of undergraduate student workers to ratify a contract. The independent Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW), originally established in 2016 by student workers in the campus dining halls, won an expansion vote in 2023 to cover all undergrad workers at the college. On April 4, the union’s membership voted to approve a contract after two years of negotiations with the university — interrupted by a strike last May that Grinnell claimed was illegal.
The contract victory represents yet another win for the growing student-worker labor movement in the United States, which in recent years has spread rapidly among both undergraduate and graduate students. Jacobin spoke with UGSDW copresidents Hannah Sweet and Conrad Dahm about their union’s long fight for a contract.
