Cameron Macedonio clocks 30 to 40 hours each week running Cal State Fullerton’s campus radio station, Titan Radio. As general manager, he oversees a 12-person staff and dozens of disc jockeys for the 24-hour broadcast, at a salary of $15.50 an hour. But the Cal State system only allows students to work 20 hours a week — so Macedonio doesn’t get compensated for much of the time he puts in. “I’m pretty much on call at all times for the station,” said Macedonio, 20, a rising fourth-year journalism major.
Expanding students’ work hours is one issue, in addition to higher salaries and paid sick leave, that Macedonio hopes to address by forming a union. He is among more than 4,000 student assistants across CSU’s 23 campuses, working in jobs from IT support to receptionist, who submitted paperwork in April seeking to hold a vote on whether to unionize. If the campaign is successful, the union would be the largest representing nonacademic undergraduate student employees in the country, according to the Cal State University Employees Union, which hopes to add the students to the more than 15,000 support staff already on its membership rolls.
For student workers, campus jobs are a lifeline that provides critical income. Faced with soaring costs for housing, groceries and other necessities, some students have been forced to supplement those jobs with other gigs off campus.
The unionization push at Cal State follows other labor uprisings led by low-paid workers in education. Tens of thousands of academic workers at the University of California won wage increases and improved benefits after walking off the job for six weeks last year. In March, support staff won similar concessions from the Los Angeles Unified School District after a three-day strike...
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