Organizers for four campus labor organizations — the Labor Organization of Community Coordinators, Third World Labor Organization, Brown Postdoc Labor Organization and Teaching Assistant Labor Organization — spent their summers negotiating new collective bargaining agreements with the University.
At the same time, the newly elected leaders of the Graduate Labor Organization are seeking to restructure RIFT-AFT Local 6516, the local chapter that encompasses all the unions above.
Graduate Labor Organization
The number of individual bargaining units in the GLO-led Local 6516 has increased from two to five since last fall. According to GLO President Michael Ziegler GS, this surge in membership has prompted union leadership to reconsider its structure. As Brown’s oldest and largest student labor organization, GLO provides legal and procedural support to its four constituent unions.
The restructured chapter, which is set to debut a new name later this fall, will feature a board with representatives from every union to offer a forum for each bargaining unit to share ideas and concerns with the Local’s leadership, Ziegler wrote in a message to The Herald.
“There will continue to be a very broad sense of deference to individual units in determining what sorts of strategies they want to pursue,” Ziegler said.
Many of GLO’s advocacy efforts last semester centered on its Spring Divestment Campaign. Though Ziegler underscored GLO’s support for the divestment proposal being presented to the Brown Corporation in October, he said the union’s specific plans for action on this issue are still under discussion.
Labor Organization of Community Coordinators
On the heels of a three-day strike during first-year move-in alleging unfair labor practices, LOCC is continuing contract negotiations with the University, and inching closer to an agreement, LOCC organizer Anna Ryu ʼ25 told The Herald. The union previously accused the University of violating federal labor law by bargaining in bad faith and unilaterally changing CCs’ working conditions, The Herald previously reported.
The strike ended after a series of informal talks between union leaders and administrators, which gave LOCC leaders renewed confidence on previously-deadlocked discussions over contentious contract articles regarding compensation, role expectations and rehiring.
“We’re feeling optimistic that this contract can be done in the next couple of weeks,” Ryu said.
In the most recent bargaining session, the University proposed a $500 increase to its previous offer of $12,000 as the stipend for CCs, marking the first time the University has adjusted its compensation proposal since negotiations began, Ryu added.
“We’ve continued to have productive conversations in recent days, and both sides continue good-faith efforts toward LOCC’s first contract with Brown,” University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “We’re optimistic about additional progress toward an agreement as bargaining proceeds.”
Third World Labor Organization
In the seven months since student workers at the Brown Center for Students of Color announced their plans to unionize, TWLO has participated in four bargaining sessions with the University over its first contract.
TWLO is seeking higher wages, “improved working conditions” and a “legal safety net” that protects students and the center’s professional staff from retaliation relating to their political advocacy, Gabi Venegas-Ramirez ’26 said in February after the union’s creation was announced.
TWLO co-founder and organizer Jo Ouyang ’26 said they believe the delay in receiving counter-proposals from the University is a deliberate bargaining strategy.
“Admin is using its own delay tactics so that it doesn’t have to reach a contract with us and it’s becoming really abundantly clear how they’re weaponizing this,” Ouyang said. “We’re gonna continue pressuring them to engage in these bargaining sessions and give us their own proposals so that we can get a contract negotiated.”
“We await a response from the union about setting our next bargaining dates. The claim that the University is seeking to delay bargaining is unfounded,” Clark wrote.
Ouyang confirmed that the University had sent the union proposed times for upcoming bargaining sessions.
Clark also noted that the University proposed that the two parties “expedite negotiations by looking at agreed-upon language from other contracts related to student unions” but “received no response.”
Ouyang wrote that they “do not recall (the University) trying to expedite negotiations by looking at language from other student contracts.”
“We often see the misunderstanding that a standard timeline for collective bargaining negotiations can be established with absolute certainty and/or accomplished in a matter of a session or two,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “This is not the case. In any industry, collective bargaining negotiations can be complex and multi-faceted, and it takes time and efforts from both sides to come to an agreement that is mutually satisfactory.”
Since its first bargaining session with the University in April, the union has introduced articles that cover “freedom of speech,” compensation, union rights and security, anti-discrimination and BCSC staffing, Venegas-Ramirez told The Herald on Wednesday. She noted that the union has yet to hear back from the University on any of its proposed contract articles.
The University has received “only five proposed articles from the union to date,” Clark said.
In a text message to The Herald, Ouyang wrote that TWLO had sent the University six articles as of Thursday regarding job descriptions, union rights and security, freedom of speech and programming, equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination, staffing and union recognition.
TWLO hasn’t seen the same turnout and mobilization of its membership as it did in the spring, Venegas-Ramirez said, noting that the union’s members had been energized by its alignment with protests calling for the University to divest from companies affiliated with the Israeli military.
The small number of BCSC employees and the high turnover of BCSC student worker positions has also made TWLO vulnerable to fluctuations in the size of its membership, Venegas-Ramirez added.
Brown Postdoc Labor Organization
BPLO reached its first tentative agreement with the University on an article related to employment files at its sixth bargaining session Thursday, according to BPLO Bargaining Chair Sarah Neville, a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Public Health and the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.
Thursday’s bargaining session took place after administrators announced the University would raise postdocs’ minimum pay levels to align with the National Institute of Health’s recommended minimums, resolving a months-long dispute between the two parties.
“It’s a win, but it’s actually just the bare minimum — they should have given us that anyway,” Neville said.
Teaching Assistant Labor Organization
TALO and the University are reaching the end of their second round of bargaining, after their 2023-24 interim agreement expired on Aug. 25. According to TALO Bargaining Committee Chair Yasmeen Abdelaziz ’25, the union and the University have reached a tentative agreement on 14 articles and one side letter.
These tentative agreements contain several differences from the interim agreement, including modifications to guidelines that govern course development responsibilities for TAs, which Abdelaziz said had “not been working” for both TAs and professors.
The articles also include “added protections” for data collection and provisions on inclusive hiring, which ensure the full-time employment of department staff members responsible for supporting its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, Abdelaziz said.
According to Abdelaziz, the only article which hasn’t been tentatively agreed upon pertains to compensation. The University most recently proposed a 2.5% pay raise for Computer Science TAs — less than the union’s original proposal of 8% — but TALO remains hopeful that an agreement is near.
“I think we are getting closer to an agreement than we were maybe a month ago,” Abdelaziz said. “I think Brown wants to be done with our (current) contract. I think we also want to be done with our contract, but we’re not going to settle for something less than we deserve.”
Ethan Schenker is a senior staff writer covering staff and student labor. He is from Bethesda, MD, and plans to study International and Public Affairs and Economics. In his free time, he enjoys playing piano and clicking on New York Times notifications.
