Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition Votes in Favor of Unionization
Originially Published in May 2024
On April 16, the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC) voted 79-3 in favor of unionization, just over three weeks after GRAC announced its intention to form a union to President John DeGioia.
In a March 22 letter to DeGioia, GRAC declared their intention to form a union to represent Georgetown residential assistants (RAs). Throughout the process, GRAC was represented by the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153 (OPEIU-153). GRAC cited a plethora of unaddressed issues and challenges that RAs face as justification for forming a union.
“Many RAs have been disciplined disproportionately for infractions that are both frivolous and arbitrary,” according to the letter.
The letter states that certain Community Directors have been adversarial and given out what have been perceived to be unjust disciplinary actions. This has resulted in the decision not to rehire some RAs and has contributed to a high rate of turnover amongst RAs as a whole.
Additionally, the letter states that the decision came after numerous attempts to address the issues through formal channels, including with the Office of Residential Living, Student Ombuds, and the Student Staff Council. In the letter, GRAC voiced their dissatisfaction with Georgetown’s official channels as they had failed to address the challenges experienced by RAs. Part of the decision to unionize was based on the lack of support and communication from the University.
On March 27, the Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Eleanor JB Daugherty, emailed GRAC to inform them that, against GRAC’s request, Georgetown would not voluntarily recognize the union. According to the University, would enable groups to hold an election, allowing all GRAC members to voice their opinions in the unionization process. Nevertheless, the University explicitly stated that they would abide by the result which, judging from the initial letter in which 85 of the 103 RAs signed in support of unionization, was nothing short of a forgone conclusion.
On April 10 GRAC, OPEIU-153 and the University agreed to hold an election on April 16. After the voting period, the votes were tallied by the NRLB. RAs voted 79-3 in favor of unionization. The University and OPEIU-153 will now enter a period of negotiation over the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, which the University believes will take around a year to complete.
After the vote, GRAC will become the second student union at Georgetown University. The Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE) became the first after ratifying its collective bargaining agreement with the University in 2020. GAGE’s negotiation process took 13 months to complete, providing a rough estimate for how long GRAC’s negotiations will presumably take.
With their vote to unionize, GRAC made history as the first RA union in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia area. Furthermore, the decision to unionize at Georgetown is part of a larger trend of undergraduate unionization across college campuses. OPEIU-153 reports that Georgetown is the eleventh undergraduate RA group to unionize with OPEIU-153 since 2022.
GRAC and OPEIU-153 will presumably serve as an integral part of the RA experience at Georgetown. Its establishment will provide representation for RA’s within the higher administrative levels of the University, giving RA’s a much-deserved and needed voice. Moreover, the union will allow for the standardization of RA duties and policies, two of the main issues affecting current RAs at Georgetown.