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Stanford RA unionization efforts raise questions for other universities

Maria Burrus, News Editor
September 25, 2026
At Stanford University, a group of Resident Assistants (RAs) unhappy with their working conditions have attempted to unionize against their administration. An election to decide if the RAs will be represented by the Resident Assistant United Rising (RAUR) will take place in October despite Stanford’s efforts to delay the National Labor Relations Board election.
At Stanford University, a group of Resident Assistants (RAs) unhappy with their working conditions have attempted to unionize against their administration. An election to decide if the RAs will be represented by the Resident Assistant United Rising (RAUR) will take place in October despite Stanford’s efforts to delay the National Labor Relations Board election.
King of Hearts

At Stanford University, a group of undergraduate Resident Assistants (RA) organized a unionization effort in response to increased responsibilities caused by understaffing and budget cuts.

In Jan. 2026, the RA’s hosted a “March on the Boss” rally to show their grievances to the university housing administration regarding working conditions.

The organizers launched the Resident Assistant United Rising (RAUR) in April. They quickly surpassed the threshold requiring 30% of workers to submit union authorization cards by collecting cards for 40% of RAs. This allowed them to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to unionize.

At Stanford, RAs receive a stipend of $12,400 although room and board is typically over $20,000, leaving their basic campus living expenses only partially covered. Dawn Royster, a prior RA at Stanford, commented on the union’s goal.

“I would say we still are looking for a more transparent hiring and firing process from Residential Education (ResEd), which is still something we have not gotten from them,” Royster said.

The union knows what they want, but the organizers are searching for a legally binding contract to clearly line out the conditions of their position.

The Stanford Undergraduate Senate passed legislation in support of RA’s unionizing effort. Organizers of RAUR protested the administration’s attempt to delay their efforts by pushing for a voluntary card-check recognition process.

This month, the NLRB regional director Christy Kwon handling the case declared that the group is eligible to unionize. As a result, a secret-ballot election to determine if RAs will be formally represented by RAUR was scheduled for October.

The Stanford University administration asked the NLRB to postpone the election to ensure that they had enough time to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects the privacy of students’ education records and personally identifiable information. Because the RAs are both students and student workers, Stanford argues that providing the NLRB with the required voter list could disclose protected student information and therefore raise FERPA concerns. As of today, the NLRB has not granted the request to postpone.

If a majority of participants in the election vote in favor of union representation, then all RAs will be represented by RAUR. For example, if 400 RAs are eligible but only 100 cast ballots, the union would be approved with 51 votes in favor.
RAs at Case Western Reserve University are currently not unionized. However, the recent NLRB ruling may be monumental because it firmly establishes that undergraduate RAs are legally considered employees and therefore they have the right to unionize. At CWRU, RAs balance is about a weekly 12-hour commitment alongside their coursework.

A third-year student RA anonymously commented on her opinion of CWRU’s Office of Residential Living and Learning.

“The administrative staff is generally very accommodating and personable, and even though they oversee a couple hundred RAs, I’ve found that they often know me by name and work hard to make the residential staff feel like a collaborative community,” she said.

The only negative comment she made regarding the office was, “I am planning to take my MCAT the week before spring semester starts, and I’m anticipating that it will conflict with spring RA training. I think it’s unreasonable [that] I will not be allowed to miss training for arguably the biggest exam of my life. I understand why training is important, but I think there could be more flexibility for returning RAs who have already completed the training numerous times before.”

When asked about compensation, she replied that she felt fairly compensated, but she mentioned that CWRU does not cover the cost of a meal plan.

“Since housing is already considered part of our compensation, I think there is a reasonable argument that the university should also help cover the cost of food,” she said. “In that sense, I think RAs should receive compensation closer to ‘room and board,’ rather than just ‘room.’”

Her final comment was, “I don’t think the issues I’ve experienced as an RA make me feel like unionization is necessary. I honestly really like being an RA and the majority of my job is just having positive interactions getting to know residents.”

Another RA, who requested to be anonymous, commented, “I think the long list of alternate students who want to be RAs are a testament to the compensation here overall being enough to make it worthwhile.”