BU’S ON-CAMPUS
UNIONIZATION
EFFORTS
Written by Mara Mellits | Designed by Tamar Ponte | Photographed by Darcy Gallagher
If you’ve noticed companies across America are unionizing left and right—you’re not alone.
North and the Midwest in the early mid-part of the 19th century,” David said.
According to Bloomberg Law, unions have won more elections this past year than they have for the past 20 years—and they’re not slowing down.
However it wasn’t until 1869, that the first union was created: the Knights of Labor.
Just walking down Commonwealth Avenue, it’s easy to see why this trend hasn’t gone away. Just in this current academic cycle there have been three on-campus unionization efforts. Two of them are connected to Boston University— the BU Children’s Center and the BU Graduate Student Union. The last one is the Starbucks on 874 Commonwealth Ave., located in the heart of BU’s West Campus, which is the only union strike as of Nov. 17 to end in a success thus far. Besides that, there are already five established unions on campus that cover full-time staff, including police officers, security officers, service, maintenance, librarians, clerical, technical and service employees. According to BU Policies, temporary, seasonal, and student employees are not allowed to unionize. But where did all these unions come from? First off, labor unions are not new. According to CGS Lecturer and the History Program Coordinator for the Metropolitan College, Andrew David, manufacturing set the stage for the formation of unions. “You see a rise in labor unions with the industrialization of the United States primarily in the
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“Better wages, better hours, and the weekend were the kinds of things they advocated for only,” David said. “They were also remarkable because they would allow anyone in, and not just in terms of skill, in terms of racial background…but even women found a home in the Knights of Labor in a way that they wouldn’t in other unions.” The Great Depression, WWI, the culture shift in the 1920s, all led to more American working industrial jobs and that eventually led to a push for labor unions. “By the mid 1950s, about a third of Americans belonged to unions,” David said. But why are they so popular now? It has to do with the economic recession and the housing crash of the 2000s, the pandemic and a younger generation that doesn’t have the same opportunities as previous generations, according to David. CGS Social Sciences Senior Lecturer Sam Deese added, “The concerns that people have about the cost of living, are also leading people to understand the value of the kind of protection that a union can give you in terms of negotiating better pay, better working conditions.”