Student housing advisors at Reed College reached tentative agreement on their first union contract in May, days before the union planned to picket the college’s graduation. Housing advisors ratified the contract May 20.
Reed housing advisors support students living in the college’s Southeast Portland dorms by planning social events, mediating conflicts, and addressing safety issues in exchange for an annual stipend equal to the cost of a dorm room (nearly $9,400) and meal plan (almost $8,500).
The contract retains the stipends and gives housing advisors minimum wage for hours worked at the mandatory two-week training they complete before the fall term each year. That will increase 2025 compensation roughly $1,300 according to the union.
The bargaining unit of 44 housing advisors voted to unionize with Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 11 in October 2023.
Eli Rall, who will be a senior in the fall, said the union was eager to get the contract settled before the end of the academic year in May because many of the housing advisors who have been active with the union since the beginning were graduating in May.
“We felt it was important that they graduated with a contract agreed to, because that was what they fought for two years ago when they were just starting out,” Rall said.
Before workers unionized, the college added on-call duties and nightly rounds without increasing compensation or consulting housing advisors.
The contract establishes a Labor-Management Committee to give workers more of a voice in changes to their jobs.
Housing advisors also won automatic rehire after their first year, guaranteed housing over winter break, and standard-issue just-cause discipline rights — “the kind of basic union provisions that just help ensure that I won’t lose my housing in the middle of the year because I’ve done something to upset my bosses,” Rall said.
The contract also allows workers to opt out of the meal plan and retain the stipend, which wasn’t previously permitted.
After taxes are taken out of the stipend, it doesn’t fully cover the cost of room and board. The union proposed moving from a stipend to a cost waiver — without any reduction to students’ financial aid — but the college refused.
The contract went into effect June 1 and runs through May 31, 2027. The contract marks a significant win for workers at Reed, because the college has for years fought against recognizing any union of student workers. Housing advisors unionized once before in 2018 only to back off once Reed’s lawyers appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, seeking to overturn a Board ruling that recognized the right of student workers to unionize.
