Lessons From The University of Oregon Undergrad Strike

The recent ratification of the University of Oregon Student Workers union’s first official contract signified a profound shift in power relations on campus. For the first time, student workers are represented by a concrete voice for our own interests, following in the footsteps of our faculty union, United Academics; our graduate employees’ union, GTFF; and our classified staff union, SEIU; along with Starbucks Workers United and Teamsters, which represent other workers on campus.

This is a version of this article I wrote shortly after one of the most pivotal moments of the strike: when dozens of student workers took action into our own hands, engaging in direct, peaceful, and nonviolent action, taking up space in support of our goals of a fair contract, fair pay, protections from harassment, and ultimately further control over the university as an institution which has periodically betrayed the students it claims to serve. The ongoing privatization of the University of Oregon directly coincides with the levels of repression it wages against students who fight for what we deserve, whether in the form of increasing protections for our low-paying, exploitative student jobs, or in an academic space which feels increasingly unwelcoming.

Our position represents a stand against the ever-encroaching repression of privatization and academic consolidation, prioritizing the needs of donors over those of students and the broader community. We took action into our own hands for this reason, and many others, and this action resulted in tangible changes for the strike and the campus as a collective. The university was scared, and they responded in turn. I’ll leave it at that. Here’s the story:

On Monday night, May 5, 2025, a week into the strike, following painfully slow negotiations with the university administration, a group of nearly 60 students participating in an afternoon study-in autonomously decided to stay in Johnson Hall past 5:30 p.m., closing time. I was one of them.

Why did we decide to escalate? Student workers had been out picketing in the streets for a week, many of us spending hours if not our full days on the picket line trying to get the university to agree to some very reasonable raises and protections. The university notably refused to move on some of our most important demands: refusing to even entertain the notion of independent grievance and arbitration for cases of discrimination and harassment, instead preferring to investigate themselves. This clear conflict of interest is something which us as striking workers refuse to tolerate as it would essentially sweep some of the most serious instances of workplace harassment under the rug, as the university would, as they have done many times before, cover it up in an attempt to protect their much-cherished reputation, as they did when several members of the UO men’s basketball team were reported for sexual assault in 2014, or as they have as staff and management accused of harassment have been moved from dining hall to dining hall rather than the issues at hand being properly addressed.

Additionally, progress on wages was painfully slow. Our initial demands, $24 per hour as a starting wage, had been negotiated down to $17.50. The university barely budged in the other direction, keeping their proposed wages at $15.80. For some context, the minimum wage in our part of Oregon is set to increase to $15.05 on July 1, 2025, while in the Portland area it will sit at $16.30.

So we sat in Johnson Hall. Around 15 minutes after the building closed, UO Police Department Corporal Steven Barrett, accompanied by Officer Rebekah Galick, gave us a verbal warning, informing us we were in violation of the law and could be arrested or cited at any time. He asked if we understood this, and we all nodded in agreement. The two officers, joined by one or two more throughout the rest of the evening, stayed with us, stationed around the Johnson Hall entrances making sure nobody else came in. While a large rally (featuring a mock boxing match where the UOSW representative defeated the admin’s representative) took place outside, we occupied ourselves by reading, playing card games, socializing, and taking in the absurdity of the situation. The administrators had locked the bathrooms before leaving, for one, and the cops jokingly offered us a bucket. They never delivered.

So we sat in Johnson Hall.

But everything seemed fairly calm. Our gathering was completely peaceful, as was the group on the outside. A couple members of our group were in contact with our bargaining team, who reported some slow but steady progress in that night’s session. We were supposed to receive another update at 10:30 p.m., but before that could happen a large squadron of police (nearly 2 dozen from both UOPD and called in from the Eugene Police Department) stormed the building, announced we were all trespassing and that we would be subject to immediate arrest if we didn’t leave right away. We asked for a few minutes to discuss as a group, which they granted, and we voted to leave (the bargaining team had urged us to), despite a substantial minority who preferred to stay and face the consequences. We got in a single-file line and marched towards the rally outside.

As a side note, the police were initially very skeptical of our “democratic” nature. They instead preferred to identify leaders of the group, who would be subject to arrest first. We told them we were making decisions as a collective body, and they seemed confused about that. This made it harder for them to single out members of the group to arrest first without threatening the group as a whole.

All in all, nobody was arrested and the night concluded with everyone home safe. The university will try to brush this under the rug, citing a “peaceful resolution” or whatever their preferred terminology is. That doesn’t change the fact that their decision to call in armed squadrons of cops was the biggest act of repression, by far, they have initiated against student protesters in decades.

For some context, the university didn’t even call in the police during a previous union sit-in in February, using the same tactics but before the strike began. Instead, Dean of Students Jimmy Howard came in to talk with the demonstrators, and this was followed by some significant progress being made at the bargaining table. Rather than engage in constructive dialogue this time, the administration jumped straight to the carceral option, choosing to exercise the might of state repression against people whose only violation was standing up for some basic rights as workers, in a place and manner that they didn’t like.

Johnson Hall is the seat of power at the university. It is the place where President Karl Scholz (operating on a $747,000 salary in addition to free room and board on the university’s dime, plus a $100,000 bonus set for the end of 2025) goes to work every day. It is the imposing crown jewel of UO’s might, adorned with bricks, a grand entrance of imposing steps and marble columns. It is technically a public building, but the architecture by design makes it uninviting to students and other members of the UO community. It is where decisions about the UO’s $1.4 billion endowment are made, and where meetings with top donors and boosters take place.

Johnson Hall is the seat of power at the university. It is the place where President Karl Scholz (operating on a $747,000 salary in addition to free room and board on the university’s dime, plus a $100,000 bonus set for the end of 2025) goes to work every day.

When Johnson Hall is threatened by people who aren’t supposed to be there, the university goes on the defense.

When Johnson Hall is threatened by people who aren’t supposed to be there, the university goes on the defense. They try to intimidate us, to ensure the decision-making of the university which in its mission statement claims to “value academic freedom, creative expression, and intellectual discourse,” is not accessible to the masses it serves. The University of Oregon Police Department, as the enforcement arm of the administration, of course enjoys free access to all areas of the building, mingling and strategizing with administrators in their offices throughout the course of the afternoon and evening. The following day, Johnson Hall was closed to the public, as it often has been during past protests when the administration feels threatened by our collective power.

The university will accuse us of unacceptable disruption while ignoring the violence, real or threatened, that they perpetuate. As Provost Christopher P. Long wrote in an email to UO employees on May 2 in response to disruptions of university-sponsored events by striking workers:

“The University of Oregon firmly supports free expression, peaceful protest, and legal strike activities. These are essential rights protected by the First Amendment and core to our identity as a public institution of higher education. But those rights do not extend to behaviors that intimidate others, obstruct essential operations, or create conditions of physical threat or other harm to those in our community.”

“Actions taken by these protesters also threaten the integrity, safety, and inclusivity of our campus.”

If marching through a few events peacefully stating our demands represents an unjustified escalation of tactics, what does two dozen armed officers dressed in riot gear and wielding batons represent on the part of the university? Disruption is only condemned when it is in opposition to the status quo, but the clear disruption to normal university life that mass arrests of dozens of students would have caused is acceptable to the administration. Students and workers are expected to roll over and blindly comply with the heavy hand of administrative power while even the most mild escalation against that heavy hand sends the university into a frenzy of panic and overreaction.

As one commenter on the UO Matters blog wrote in response to the above statement, “Why is [it] we get an immediate email from the Provost when students are ‘trouble,’ but zero communication from him when the federal government causes actual real trouble for our students? Seriously.” The university has made it clear who they serve and protect, and it’s not the students. As we left the building, we chanted “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” at the police. Not us.

The following day, the university announced the Spring Street Faire would be cancelled. An email to UO students from Vice President for Student Life Angela Lauer Chong, cosigned by ASUO President Mariam Hassan, blamed the union’s “recent disruptions” making it “impossible to move forward with the event at this time.” To say nothing of the recent severe disruption committed by the UO Police Department at Johnson Hall? Cancelling the street faire, for context, cost them several hundred thousand dollars in vendor contracts – once again, the same university administration which claims they cannot pay every worker a slightly higher wage.

Setting A New Precedent

Just how unprecedented the university’s escalation is can be underscored by the actions of the administration during the numerous campus demonstrations over the past few years. Police were last called in to arrest protesters in 2000. During the pro-Palestine encampment last year calling for the university to divest from Israel, police were never sent in to arrest protesters despite this type of repression happening at similar universities all across the country. In fact, UO’s encampment was one of the few to negotiate a successful deal with the university, and the encampment came to an end without any police involvement. The university has, however, been issuing numerous code-of-conduct violations against protesters for using “amplified sound” and other disruptions, which began by targeting pro-Palestine protesters during the 2023-24 school year and continued into this school year, targeting labor organizers. Previously, UO had only issued amplified sound code-of-conduct violations for events such as serious class disruptions and loud dorm parties, not for organized protest activity. Not to mention that the university pays $700 per hour to an outside consulting firm to investigate and prosecute said code-of-conduct violations, but claims to not be able to afford even a meager increase in student worker base pay.

But the threat of arrest is an extreme escalation from code-of-conduct violations, which are issued after-the-fact and rarely result in serious consequences for the affected students. The tactic of peaceful civil disobedience has been successfully employed over the years both on and off campus and typically results in a disproportionate response by the powers that be, charging people with crimes, sometimes trumped-up felony charges, for expressing their First Amendment rights.

Why would the university choose now, after so many past opportunities, to finally send in the riot squad? Maybe they have been emboldened by the current presidential administration’s heightened crackdown on student expression. Maybe they made the calculation that their reputation would not be as damaged as in the past by ordering dozens of students to be taken to jail by armed cops in riot gear in front of their peers. But the reality is they felt threatened by us. They recognize the drive and will that student workers showed over the past week and continue to show, calling them out directly on their deliberate stalling and insufficient proposals. When that happens, they feel our might and can’t tolerate the loss of control over the situation. The calculation they made was they would rather demonstrate their show of force over us, hoping to silence us, engineer a chilling effect, and ultimately make us cave, which to them is clearly worth the potential damage to their reputation.

Strength In Numbers

But it had the opposite effect. Students and supporters both inside and outside were only strengthened in resolve by the repression. The cops, despite being armed to the teeth and dressed in protective riot gear, ran like scared little children away from a peaceful demonstration after escorting us outside, knocking over a passing cyclist in the process, and sped off in their police cars. They then stationed themselves at various points around the university, apparently hoping to scare us while sitting inside their vehicles. It didn’t work, and everyone went home without incident.

UO works because we do, and only by taking power into our own hands and demanding change can we turn this university into an accountable institution which values the people it claims to.

So what does this all mean? The university is emboldened, clearly, but so are we. We shouldn’t expect them to exercise the same restraint in calling in the police to suppress protests and strikes that they historically have. But we don’t have to be threatened, as we are on the right side of history and they are on the side of reaction and oppression, no different than the many other universities which have repressed student activism, often violently, over the past couple years in particular but dating back to the 1960s and before.

It’s worth noting this action took place one day after the 55th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, during which National Guard troops called in by Kent State University administration gunned down four students and injured nine others in response to a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. Every action of state violence against peaceful demonstrators invites the chance of a repetition of that massacre, as the state has historically shown they are not above such draconian abuse. In actions if not words, they find themselves on the side of the Trump administration which has been so adamantly opposed to the free speech rights the United States Constitution supposedly protects. They echo past UO administrations, such as that of President David Frohnmayer which in 2000 withdrew from the anti-sweatshop Workers’ Rights Consortium after Phil Knight threatened to, and did, pull funding from the university.

As it always has been, the university is primarily subject to the whims of its donors and unaccountable Board of Trustees rather than to students, faculty, staff, and the community. Their interests come first, and everything else comes second. This is demonstrated by the incidents they choose to highlight and repress, remaining silent in the era of massive attacks on higher education but complaining when student workers demonstrate for a fair wage and reasonable protections they can certainly afford to provide. UO works because we do, and only by taking power into our own hands and demanding change can we turn this university into an accountable institution which values the people it claims to.

The forces of state repression do not exist in a vacuum, and they rely on active support from a segment of the population and passive acceptance from much of the rest. This allows active resistance to be further suppressed. UO’s deliberate framing in both emails mentioned earlier (the provost’s email and the email regarding the street faire cancellation) is meant to weaken sympathy for the strike amongst the student body as a whole.

Reactions on the Fizz app, which allows anonymous posts to be shared with all members of the campus community who use the app, regarding the sit-in and police response at Johnson Hall included:

“Breaking and entering is not gonna get you what you want” (disregarding the fact that no such thing was done, instead we entered a building available to the public and remained there),

“Dear student workers you made your bed and I hope you have fun laying in it when you strike yourself out of a job and half the student population ends up hating y’all,”

“There’s a difference between disobedience and illegal,”

“Dude they broke the law” (in response to “UO bringing cops in riot gear to arrest 19 year olds wanting $16 an hour is insane”),

“I mean they broke into private property so…”

(it’s a public institution, there’s no “private property” on the UO campus, no matter how much Phil Knight and the Board of Trustees wish there was), etc., with hundreds of upvotes each.

Fizz also featured many supportive comments with similar numbers of upvotes, but overall projected a divided user base and student body, a division which only has gotten worse over the past week.

The university’s tactics, which include a monopoly on official communications and the ability to frame the narrative to suit their needs, have had their intended effect among the less politicized segments of the student body. Taking a popular event like the street faire and blaming us (there were dozens of comments condemning either the union, ASUO, or some amorphous entity for cancelling the faire rather than directing their ire at the administration) serves to advance the university’s anti-labor and anti-student agenda. What those advocates for repression don’t understand, however, is that emboldening the university’s coercive power means the tables could just as easily turn on them if they fall astray of the administration’s agenda for whatever reason.

UO Student Workers has been lucky to have several people with institutional power on our side. Former Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy spoke at a May 2 rally alongside other politicians in support of the strike, the day after student workers had disrupted a presentation by Professors Francis Fukuyama and Larry Diamond on the future of democracy. Piercy had been in attendance at that event, and reflected on it during her speech: “I just thought it was a perfect illustration of democracy in action and a wonderful illustration to the campus and to students about how we all have to stand up against the loss of democracy.” Institutional support, not just from Piercy but from other local and state politicians, other campus unions (GTFF, United Academics, SEIU), local unions such as the Teamsters and SMART (the Sheet Metal Workers union), supportive faculty and alumni provide a powerful counterweight to the university’s control over the narrative. Countering the apparatus of institutional control takes work and organization, but it can be done.

Final Thoughts

Where do we go from here? Strikes are meant to be disruptive, but once a contract is finalized this temporary disruption gives way to a return to the basic structure of campus life. Johnson Hall will reopen to the public, and Karl Scholz and Chris Long will breathe a temporary sigh of relief, just as they did when United Academics reached a last-minute deal to avoid striking at the end of spring break, just as they did when SEIU and GTFF contract negotiations last winter resulted in tentative agreements before a strike could take place. They would love nothing more than to sweep this last disgraceful episode under the rug, just as they have tried to avoid the impacts of every negative decision they have made, every institutional abuse they have perpetrated over the years. They would like for prospective students on tours not to have to confront the disruption which has rocked campus for the past week and a half, rather, they would like to pretend it doesn’t exist. They want them to see smiling students and workers, eager to carry on UO’s stated mission of “fostering the next generation of transformational leaders and informed participants in the global community,” valuing intellectual freedom and inclusion in theory while in practice suppressing it to the best of their ability wherever it arises. And they don’t want to do this all over again when our next contract expires in a couple of years. Unfortunately for them, I think they’re in for a rude awakening. Time will tell.

Still, several dozen student workers and several hundred supporters directly advocated for our rights.

Reflecting on this piece, I recognize that our action represented a minority of student workers. Still, several dozen student workers and several hundred supporters directly advocated for our rights, and almost everybody I talked to was in support, even if they received conflicting information about the situation. The university felt threatened, and they responded in turn. We didn’t get arrested, and I still debate whether a potential arrest would have represented a PR catastrophe for the university which would have forced them to concede to our demands, or whether it would have strengthened their position by painting us as violent insurrectionists hell-bent on destroying institutions (regardless of how true that statement actually was, it’s how they attempted to frame us). I guess we’ll never know. I know that our contract represents a starting point not just for us but for student workers across the country inspired by what we succeeded at. My first union meeting was in the fall of 2022, almost right after I was hired as a student worker, and we’ve achieved more than I ever expected us to. While we weren’t the first student worker union in the country, we set an example, especially for public universities, and other student worker unions have already followed in our footsteps. More will come, and I’m excited to see what they will accomplish.

Solidarity forever!