Susan Poser's History with Student Unions
BY: MICHELLE RABINOVICH AND URVI GANDHI
(Sept. 26, 2022) — As student employees at Hofstra University receive a wage raise, some are also attempting to establish a student union. While Hofstra president Susan Poser has provided limited insight into her stance on the issue, this is not her first time dealing with unions.
Poser began her tenure as president at Hofstra after a five-and-a-half-year stint as the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), from Feb. 2016 to Aug. 2021. According to members of UIC’s Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), a union that represents graduate teaching assistants and graduate assistants on campus, Poser’s time there is remembered by some as anti-union.
“Hearing people from the faculty union who had direct experience with her, they don't have a whole lot of positive things to say about their dealings with her,” said Jeff Schuhrke, an adjunct professor and former co-president of GEO who was enrolled in UIC’s Ph.D. program until 2015. “She wasn't listening or didn't want to negotiate. Didn't want to discuss, just wanted to unilaterally make decisions. She didn't leave behind a good reputation, at least with the unions,” he said.
“I remember UIC’s GEO being a very strong and adversarial group,” said Poser. She also added that she did not play a major role in these negotiations, with the exception of one bargaining session.
“I became acutely aware of Poser during our 2018-2019 contract negotiations, campaign and subsequent 3-week strike,” said Erin O’Callaghan, a GEO member during Poser’s time as provost. “We finally got her to come to the bargaining table during week 3 of the strike after we protested one of the Provost office's ‘campus conversations.’”
“It was against their contract, but I think a lot of faculty members did not cross the picket line and didn’t face any consequences because of that,” said Poser.
Both parties had been in negotiations for over a year regarding issues that included base pay, healthcare, wages and tuition.
Members worked without a contract from Sept. 2018 to March 2019, after which they went on strike.The strike ended in less than a month, when UIC’s administration and the union reached a “tentative agreement.”
The final result was the “strongest contract to date” as explained by Schuhrke in the Activist History Review.
Schuhrke vividly remembers the strike and what it took to get higher-ups like Poser to come to the bargaining table.
“It seemed to us that they were not negotiating in good faith,” said Schuhrke. According to him, as the strike dragged on, members were left wondering if there was an end in sight and whether they would see any progress at the bargaining table. “The union started kind of publicly calling out both Provost Poser, as well as the chancellor, for not coming to any of the bargaining sessions themselves, because they're the actual decision-makers, but they weren't part of the negotiations directly.”
“We felt disrespected by the whole university administration,” said Schuhrke. “[Poser came] to a bargaining session herself, [after] almost three weeks into the strike. At that point, we had over 30 negotiating bargaining sessions over 13 months.”
“When she finally arrived at the bargaining table, she was infantilizing,” said O’Callaghan. “Clearly she had not been paying attention to the over-year-long negotiations we had."
UIC did not respond to The Clocktower’s multiple requests for comment.
Hofstra recently announced that it would be raising hourly wages for a majority of student employees, with most employees earning at least $12 per hour. Students employed as Resident Safety Representatives (RSRs) will be making $12 per hr and students with more “specialized” jobs would be making $15 per hr and higher.
Seniors Ryder Lazo and Chloe Leatherman are working together to start a student workers’ union.
“[We’ve both] heard a lot of horror stories about working as an RSR. People can’t find shifts at all, people are only able to find shifts that conflict with their class schedule, and they can’t drop shifts for emergencies without consequences,” said Lazo. “Why are the people so important to campus safety being treated like this?”
“$15 as a living wage, [is the] bare minimum,” she explained. “[For now] I just don't see them raising wages to a point where a lot of people would feel that it is a living wage, and that's something [they] could live off of without having to supplement from other means of income,” said Lazo before the raise was announced.
“I’m not anti-union by any means. I would encourage our undergraduate students to focus on their classes and experience college,” said Poser in response to the effort.
“How is this possible when students need to make decisions on which necessities they should pay for?” said Lazo and Leatherman in response.
In 2019, students started the Hofstra Student Workers Coalition in an attempt to organize student employees. The coalition managed to get an SGA resolution in support of raising wages passed on February 6, 2020. However, organizing efforts dissolved when the pandemic began, and the student leaders at the helm graduated or left the university.
O’Callaghan had advice for Hofstra’s student workers, especially in the heat of conversations around wages at the forefront of many student body members.
“In terms of what I would say to unions at Hofstra – fight for what you need,” she said. “So organize with your comrades, and rely on each other – it's the only way to build a better world. [Administrations] will only care when you make them care; when you give them no other option but to listen and give in to your demands.”
Photo Credits: Hofstra University
