Kenyon College Community Advisors Strike over Unfair Labor Practices

A majority of Community Advisors (CA) in the Office of Residential Life at Kenyon College, the equivalent of Residential advisors at many institutions, have entered into an indefinite unfair labor practice strike over coercive and retaliatory changes made to the CA position earlier this year. In January, the Kenyon administration announced its intent to change compensation for the CA position from a wage system to a stipend system, declassifying CAs from their classification as statutory employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under these changes, minimum wage and overtime regulations will no longer apply to CAs, nor will rights and protections related to collective organizing, including the right to unionize, under the NLRA.

On April 10, 2022, the day prior to the beginning of the strike, an unfair labor practice charge was filed with Region 8 of the National Labor Relations Board regarding the changes, prompting an investigation into the changes and their relation to ongoing student worker organizing.

On March 3, 2022, a majority of Kenyon College Community Advisors participated in a one-day strike in solidarity with the Kenyon Farmers following the retaliatory disbandment of the Kenyon Farm’s residential program in what was the largest known undergraduate student labor strike. Student-workers at Kenyon College have been organizing with the Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee (K-SWOC/UE) since March of 2020. Since then, Kenyon College has denied proposals for two different forms of voluntary recognition and is currently fighting K-SWOC’s petition for NLRB certification election and attempting to overturn the rights of undergraduate and graduate student workers at private institutions under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) altogether.