After Temple resident assistants, peer mentors and resident hall association executive board members announced they would unionize, Temple did not respond to their request for union recognition by the organization’s deadline of Oct. 4 at 5 p.m.
The Temple Union of RAs formed their union at the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153. Members of TURA were not shocked by Temple’s decision not to recognize their union by their deadline.
“I think it was just disappointing, but not surprising,” said Gianna Voges, a junior journalism major and member of TURA.
Temple did not respond to TURA directly, but told The Temple News they are still reviewing their request for recognition.
“We recently received notice that our student resident assistants, peer mentors and executive board members of the Residence Hall Association are interested in forming a collective bargaining unit,” wrote a university spokesperson in a statement to The Temple News. “We deeply value the contributions of these students, and we are committed to providing them with outstanding leadership opportunities and learning experiences. We are presently reviewing their request.”
Voges said TURA had already been prepared for this response and were advised this may happen by OPEIU.
“We were told that they’ll try to push it off as long as possible,” Voges said.
If Temple does not officially recognize TURA, the student-run union will continue to rally support in the community and take their petition to Harrisburg, Voges said.
The members of TURA believe a decision by Temple to not recognize them as a union would go against the university’s founding principles.
“Temple claims that they are committed to their founding principles,” the union wrote in a statement on social media posted on Oct. 4. “One of them is ‘Creating a collaborative community of outstanding faculty and staff who foster inclusion and encourage the aspirations of Temple students.’ By ignoring our petition to form TURA, Temple is ignoring its founding principles.”
RAs recently took a pay cut, motivating student workers for change. Students found out that rather than the $200 to $400 stipend they normally get for training and books, they would now only receive a $200 tuition credit.
Voges shared that this change furthered TURA’s decision to unionize, but was not the sole cause of their decision.
“Another thing we are fighting for is mental health support,” Voges said. “We are the first responders to crises that happen in our halls. We have to assist with residents who don’t have the best home life, who have Title IX cases and stuff, and we aren’t really offered a lot of support for dealing with that on our own.”
Some of the responsibilities of RAs at Temple include being a first responder to any emergencies in the building, meetings with each resident on their floor, attending weekly staff meetings, planning monthly events for residents, dorm checks and more.
Another complaint amongst the RAs were the staffing ratios. Some RAs are required to attend to 70 residents at one time, said Jam Stebbins, an RA at Morgan South.
“There has to be a RA in the building at all times even during breaks and right now we are getting paid $45 a day for that and last year we were getting paid even less than that,” said Stebbins, a senior psychology major. “On Christmas we get paid less than $3 an hour to not be with our families.”
Stebbins said that other unionized RAs, like those at Drexel and Penn, are receiving better benefits than Temple’s RAs. Stebbins’ main goal in joining TURA is to give RAs a voice in contract negotiations.
“I want to be able to sit with or have somebody sit with the admin at Temple and say, ‘Do we actually think what we’re getting is fair?’ because right now we don’t have any of that decision,” Stebbins said.
Some benefits that other OPEIU union members at Drexel, Penn and Wesleyan have received include seniority pay bumps, raises proportional to residential fees, additional per diem payment if workers are required to work more than outlined in their contract, a labor management committee and guaranteed days off for specified holidays.
Stebbins emphasized that TURA members are just looking for equitable pay and support for the work they are doing.
“We as RAs don’t dislike our jobs,” Stebbins said. “We aren’t looking for a fight with administration. We just know what we are getting isn’t fair.”
Gianna Voges has previously freelanced for The Temple News. She did not contribute to the writing, reporting or editing of this story.
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