From Maya Cruz, a member of SEIU 925, staff at the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, housed at the University of Washington, connects students, staff, and faculty to the study of labor through education, research, and relationships with working communities and the broader labor movement. Our latest research report, “The State of the Student Worker – University of Washington,” highlights the experiences of one such community: student workers, or those who are enrolled in an institution of higher education and work in at least one paid position. Our research team consisted of formerly or currently enrolled University of Washington (UW) students, most of whom are student workers themselves.
Our research process began with survey development in October 2023, followed by survey distribution to the three UW campuses (Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma) from January through March 2024, and interviews from April through June 2024. Our team received over 600 survey responses and interviewed approximately 15 students. We found that only 5% of UW student workers consider their knowledge of workers’ rights “extremely adequate.” Only 9% of UW student workers are union members, though many reported that they support unions. 46% of survey respondents reported being unaware whether their workers’ rights had been violated.
Alongside other findings such as where and why students work and how students balance work and school, we made six recommendations to both Washington state and the University of Washington, including a call to mandate workers rights’ education in public high schools, following the recent establishment of California’s Workplace Readiness Week through AB 800.
The goal of this research and our recommendations is to provide a resource to student workers, their employers, and other stakeholders and community members to initiate an understanding of and encourage organizing around the unique experiences student workers go through both inside and outside of the workplace. When we distributed our survey, we made sure to also distribute other resources, such as the Washington State Labor Education and Research Center’s “Washington State Workers’ Rights Manual.” Following the release of our report, we held two events to discuss our report and hear from community members about what we can now do with this information.
Our first event, held online, involved a panel with speakers from the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), Washington Young Emerging Labor Leaders (WA-YELL), UFCW 3000, and UAW 4121 (member of HELU). Audience members heard from these speakers about what it looks like to be engaged in different kinds of organizing to promote workers’ rights awareness to students. Our in-person event, with a focus on workers’ rights education for students, heard a know your rights presentation from APALA with topics ranging from wage theft to predictable scheduling. We also heard from students organizing to improve UW managers’ knowledge of workers’ rights and from students organizing in their campus workplace with UAW 4121.
Ultimately, the purpose of “The State of the Student Worker” is to take action for student workers, with this knowledge as part of our tools. We hope to continue discussions with student workers, organizers, employers, community members, and elected officials about how we can improve working conditions for students to improve their quality of life overall. We hope our report encourages student workers to take action together to demand what is rightfully theirs.