On Dec. 13, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and the Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee (K-SWOC) withdrew their petition for an election to determine whether Kenyon student workers should be represented by UE for the purposes of collective bargaining. The withdrawal ended a lengthy hearing process to address a variety of legal questions raised by the existence of an undergraduate student union. 

K-SWOC’s decision to withdraw was based on the assumption that President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration will appoint a broadly anti-labor NLRB, according to an email from Lauren Lehr ’25 on behalf of K-SWOC. K-SWOC would be the first union to attempt to represent all undergraduate student workers — rather than a specific type of worker such as a community advisor or dining staff —so the union had to consider the precedent a failed hearing would create. “An unfavorable decision would have threatened the rights of other undergraduate students attempting to organize at their own institutions, as well as generations of students to come,” Lehr said.

UE filed the petition over three years ago in October 2021. After several delays, the hearing finally occurred in October 2023, featuring interviews from dozens of student workers, staff and faculty. Throughout the process, the administration argued that student work is part of a Kenyon education, that all undergraduate student workers do not represent one class of worker and that undergraduate students are not protected by the National Labor Relations Act. In turn, K-SWOC accused the administration of union busting, intentionally stalling the hearing and unethical labor practices. 

While K-SWOC would consider reentering its petition under a pro-labor administration, for the time being it plans on acting as an advocacy organization, according to Lehr. “We will continue to organize community-building events and mutual aid initiatives alongside fighting for the right of students to have a say in our campus, community, and workplace,” Lehr said. K-SWOC intends to focus on community-building initiatives and practical student support. In the past, it provided approximately 15 Kenyon students with healthcare through its Community Health and Wellness Fund.

“We enter into a new opportunity to engage directly with the students,” President Julie Kornfeld said in an interview with the Collegian. “We were stuck in the sense that while we were in the midst of a legal process, we could not engage and have conversations. And now that that process is over, we can actually sit down and have direct conversations with students about ‘what are the things that we could be working on together?’”

Despite the withdrawal of the petition, Lehr is still hopeful for the future of K-SWOC: “We are in active communication with the president’s office and are working on establishing a more productive relationship between K-SWOC and the administration … We are hopeful that this newly established discourse will bring concrete benefits for student workers in the next few years.”