The Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor (KI), Georgetown University’s research and education labor center, and members of the Georgetown Coalition for Workers Rights (GCWR), a student organization promoting student-worker solidarity on campus, hosted the inaugural Georgetown Interunion Assembly March 18.
The assembly brought together 30 students, university employees and workers across five of the labor unions represented at Georgetown, including the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC); the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE); Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199, which represents maintenance workers; SEIU Local 32BJ, which represents janitorial workers; and SEIU Local 500, which represents adjunct faculty. The attendees discussed contract details including healthcare benefits and paid time off, the structure of their unions, divisions amongst workers within university departments and collective approaches to addressing these issues.
The event was part of Labor Spring 2025, a translocal movement in which KI is participating, which hosts labor and organizing events across college campuses nationwide.
Inés Molina, GCWR’s lead organizer for the facilities team, said the event aimed to foster dialogue between workers from different unions.
“There are a lot of types of workers on campus, a lot of them are facing very similar issues, and they don’t have any avenues to talk to each other, so we’re just trying to create that space where folks can talk to each other that they haven’t had before,” Molina told The Hoya.
Fiona Naughton (SFS ’26), a GCWR steering committee member, said campus unions often feel disconnected from one another, despite facing similar challenges.
“One of the biggest problems that’s plaguing the workers on this campus right now is a feeling of disillusionment and of alienation from those around them, so having spaces like this where people can come together in community and say ‘We have your back, we’ve been through this before’ — it is so fundamental to build some sort of broader sense of solidarity,” Naughton told The Hoya.
Matt Dame (CAS ’27), a GCWR events and outreach board member, said bringing together various union members allowed them to discuss strategies on shared issues like negotiating pay increases.
“There’s a lot of similarities and a lot of places to connect,” Dame told The Hoya. “So that’s a lack of benefits or a lack of pay, especially in regards to inflation and how pay is not raising, and a lot of the same arguments are used by the university to deny groups a pay increase. But different approaches allow people to learn what’s effective and use that.”
Dame said the event sparked various ideas for future interunion activity at Georgetown, including planning future events and launching an interunion committee.
“One of the suggestions was building a committee of union members from across the six different unions and actually pooling in some money to that and being able to use that for education drives, supporting each union when they’re going through renegotiations and just having sort of a rainy day fund that can help with any sort of organizing matters,” Dame said.
Elinor Clark (CAS ’27), another GCWR steering committee member, said workers face additional challenges under the Trump administration, which fired two Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), leaving the board with too few members for the quorum needed for the board to function.
“While it is really frustrating that the current administration preaches to support the working class, it’s clear through their actions, their dismantling of the NLRB, their fighting workers at every turn and backing employers consistently, that they don’t care about workers,” Clark told The Hoya.
Molina said current national immigration debates also directly impact the university, which hires workers who are non-citizens.
“There are a lot of folks on this campus who are reasonably frightened for their safety and for their future in this country,” Molina said. “And I think that as, not only as employers but as community members, I think we as the university owe it to our workers — who are on Temporary Protected Status, on student visas and other types of relatively unstable immigration statuses — to protect them.”
Clark said students and workers from different sects of the campus participating in the assembly is a testament to the labor community’s resolve.
“One of the amazing things about this event is that we showed the Georgetown community, the D.C. community, that workers are not afraid, and we will continue to organize and fight,” Clark said.
