Kenyon Farmers Unanimously Authorize ULP Strike

Dear Kenyon Community,

On Monday, February 7, the Kenyon Farmers, as members of K-SWOC/UE, unanimously voted to authorize a strike over unfair labor practices committed by the administration. We have chosen to authorize this strike in response to the top-down decision made by President Decatur and Provost Bowman to end the residential program at the Farm, a decision that comes with negative implications for our work. The Residential Farmer position, which is currently held by four students, allows us to enter up to twenty hours of work every week, while non-residential farmers can only enter ten hours. Without the residency to provide daily chores, maintenance, and circumstances demanding our attention, it is entirely unrealistic to expect that any student worker could accumulate twenty hours of work at the Farm while living on campus. Such a drastic reduction in our hours in the midst of an NLRB union recognition election process is an undisputable unfair labor practice, and we cannot tolerate it.

In the weeks since we learned of the decision to end the residential program at the Farm, we have attempted to understand the logic behind the decision by meeting with the administrators who made it. Instead, our conversations with them have made it clear to us that there is no logic to be found. The faculty committees that oversee curricular changes were not consulted before the decision was declared final, despite the fact that we have been told this change was made in the interest of the curriculum. Furthermore, Provost Bowman openly admitted that there is no plan as to who will replace the four students who live in the house. There is no vision, long term or short term, for how the livestock will be cared for, how the community will be maintained, or how the Farm’s educational role on campus at large will improve as a result of this decision. From our perspective, it is completely nonsensical. We are left with only one reasonable explanation for this change: union busting in the context of our ongoing fight for union recognition.

The Farm has been a public and unanimous shop throughout unionization efforts, and we have participated in strikes before. During the fall 2021 semester, when the administration’s legal counsel Jones Day filed a motion to dismiss our petition for an NLRB election, the Farm was the only workplace that their motion named specifically. They used us as an example to make the case that “student positions are not core to the College’s business operations” (6). We objected to this claim at the time in an op-ed to the Collegian. Now, three months later, we are still fighting the reductive and insulting view of our labor that the administration and its legal counsel have adopted in their efforts to prevent us from unionizing.

Given the administration’s resistance to our efforts in K-SWOC and its complete unwillingness to negotiate with student workers, we see no alternative but to strike. If our labor truly “serves no core business operation and generates no revenues” (6), then the administration should be fine to manage and maintain a ten-acre farm on its own. We call on all other student workers to join us on the picket line: Our issues are your issues, and yours are ours. The disrespect, callousness, and lack of consideration that we have experienced as Farmers is not unique to us. It is the attitude with which the Kenyon administration views all student workers.

We give our endless thanks to all of you who have supported us thus far. On Monday, we delivered the petition that you all signed to President Decatur, which reached 1,354 signatures. The volume and depth of your support has encouraged and buoyed us as we navigate these waters. As we prepare to go on strike and lead other student workers with us, we’re gathering the resources we’ll need to cover workers’ wages during the work stoppage. To donate to our strike fund, Venmo @kswoc your donation with the subject line “strike fund.” It’s also still productive to contact President Decatur and Provost Bowman with your concerns; a template letter can be found here.

Provost Bowman: (740) 427- 5114, bowmanj@kenyon.edu

President Decatur: (740) 427-5111, president@kenyon.edu

In Solidarity,

The Kenyon Farmers