Raising the wage, calling for a union among student workers

Throughout my years on this campus, I have participated in many of the departments that offer student employment. I cooked for students in Sexton Dining, I delivered mail in the Mail Center, I cleaned up Patrick Hall as a custodian during the summer of 2020, and now I work for Residential Life.

No matter where or how hard I worked, I always toiled for the same price as everywhere else, regardless if the job was easier or harder than the last: ten dollars an hour.

According to the Minnesota Department of Labor, the minimum wage for Minnesota is $10.33, if the employer makes more than $500,000 per year. The average student worker is paid the absolute minimum the institution is mandated to pay.

CSB/SJU isn’t incentivized to pay the students more because there is always going to be a large supply of desperate and needy students who absolutely need the money, no matter how meager it is.

It is true that work-study awards increase and decrease based on the income of the family and the student, but there are problems with this system. The poorer a student is, the more they can work per week.

The neediest students work up to 12 hours a week, precious time that could be spent studying, talking to teachers or participating in campus events. This lack of free time leads to a bleeding of socialness and grades, and an increase in depression and isolation.

Right now, a Johnnie can take a bus to CSB, walk five minutes to Kwik Trip and work there for $15 an hour. Any student with a car can drive to McDonalds, Walgreens or Target and work for $15 with a sign on bonus.

All locations I mentioned give various benefits to their workers while our opportunities give few to none. These positions are just as hard—if not less difficult—as many of the jobs offered by CSB/SJU, yet these employers treat their employees much better than an institution which claims to hold the Benedictine values to heart.

The Benedictine values of Community Living, Respect for Persons, Dignity of Work and Common Good are being contradicted by the school’s unwillingness to increase the wage more than the absolute minimum.

If we are to preserve the campus life and experience of CSB/SJU, we should ensure there is no difference between job on campus and off.

The best thing we can do to start this change is to come together as a union of student workers to talk about and protest this inequality. We should fight for a $15 per hour wage, paid sick days so people don’t choose work over health, yearly bonuses to incentivize long-term employment, and the opportunity to protest bad treatment and unfair conditions. This isn’t a call for division; this is a call for a union.