The United Campus Workers Union recently protested on the Southern Miss campus to push back against federal and state legislation targeting higher education. According to the union’s website, the group is, “building the power to take higher education back from corporations and billionaires and put it in the hands of workers, students, and communities. A full-time job should keep us out of poverty, not in it.”
Gaven Wallace, a current union and staff member at USM, explained that he joined the union as a graduate student and that being in this union has allowed him to stand up for something greater than himself.
“This (United Campus Workers) has really been a great outlet for me to work towards bettering something,” Wallace said. “Working with UCW on this march and this campaign and other campaigns we’re working on right now has really been fulfilling for me in a way that it helps me feel active and not frozen, and I actually feel like I’m doing something and making a change and having an impact on the world around me.”
Union member and protest organizer Patricia McCourt explained what the union is and how people wanting to join can learn more about what the union does.
“United Campus Workers is a wall-to-wall labor union,” McCourt said. “We represent every job class at the university. We organize around issues that workers find deeply meaningful on their campuses, whether that be pushing for better pay and benefits or, in the current climate, defending academic freedom.”
McCourt said that anyone interested in joining the union can go to their website, ucwms.org/join, to learn more about the union and the causes they stand for.
With union chapters nationwide, the United Campus Workers organization advocates for living wages for all workers, including graduate students and non-tenure-track professors. This union was created to cover all workers at every state college or university. Their most recent expansion was here at USM, and they have a growing chapter and encourage all workers to learn more about what the union does.
