After a semester of organizing their union, Georgetown’s Residential Assistants (RAs) have started negotiations for their new labor contract with university administration.
Members of the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC) gathered for their second round of contract negotiations with Georgetown administrators on Sept. 26. RAs presented their contract proposal to the university on July 29, and over the next several months will continue bargaining to finalize the agreement. GRAC’s goals include fair compensation, revised accountability guidelines for RAs and Community Directors, and a formal grievance process.
Georgetown RAs spent several months organizing during the spring semester, holding an election through secret ballots on April 16 to form GRAC. RAs voted overwhelmingly in support of unionizing. GRAC is represented by Local 153 branch of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).
Following the election, GRAC created a bargaining committee working on a contract proposal based on grievances RAs expressed in a spring survey. These grievances include low financial compensation and uneven accountability from supervisors. As GRAC works through negotiations, its focus is addressing these issues, so that RAs can effectively perform their jobs, according to Ulises Olea-Tapia (SFS ’25), an RA in Village A who serves as GRAC’s bargaining lead.
“We want to ensure a contract that enables RAs to be supported so that we can then go on to support our residents,” Olea-Tapia said.
During each bargaining session, GRAC members and OPEIU Local 153 representative David Hamer-Hodges meet with university administration and legal council to discuss the terms of the contract one article at a time. Jonathan Fritts (LAW ’98), a lawyer retained by Georgetown and partner at Morgan Lewis, a firm known for representing corporations in anti-union lawsuits, serves as the university’s legal council.
Once the two sides come to a tentative agreement on an article, the clause is “turned around,” or resolved, and the parties continue to work through the contract’s next sections.
According to Olea-Tapia, GRAC and the university have come to tentative agreement on seven of the 23 proposed contract articles so far, including articles covering nondiscrimination and contract severability—generally standard articles in most labor contracts. Nondiscrimination clauses protect employees from unequal treatment on the basis of race, gender, ability, religion, or other identities, and the severability clause states that a judge can rule that one term of the contract is invalid and remove it without altering the rest of the agreement.
Two articles were turned around at the first meeting, and the second round saw progress on clauses related to both general labor practices and specific measures for how GRAC and the university will interact.
A significant article that the groups reached a tentative agreement on during the second round was a grievance and arbitration process for RAs facing disciplinary actions. Currently, there is no official procedure in place for RAs to dispute complaints if they feel they were unfairly disciplined, other than to informally raise the decision to the Director of Residential Education, who then looks at the case and makes a decision.
In the new contract article, RAs will have 15 days to start a formal complaint process. Then an assistant director at Residential Living would determine whether a grievance exists, according to Olea-Tapia. The union would represent the RA and negotiate with Residential Living to resolve the matter. If the two parties cannot come to an agreement, they can enter a formal arbitration proceeding.
GRAC and Georgetown also reached an agreement on a labor management committee, which according to Olea-Tapia would comprise five RAs and five university officials to oversee the contract’s implementation. The committee would provide recommendations for the administration of the contract, giving RAs a direct line of communication with Georgetown as it goes into effect.
Miranda Xiong (CAS ’27), an RA in Darnall, notes that some RAs may find the clauses discussed thus far “banal,” but they show an optimistic trend toward agreement.
“I’ll go on a limb here and say they were mostly agreeable,” Xiong said. “There’s some stuff that we didn’t agree on, but we did make good progress, so I’m really happy about that.”
Although some RAs have had previous experience in advocacy and community organization, Xiong said the bargaining process has been unique.
“I think it’s been surprising,” Xiong said. “None of us really knew what to expect no matter how much David [Hamer-Hodges] tried to tell us. It’s just one of those things where you just have to be there to experience it.”
Other RAs noted the significance of being able to participate in negotiations. Aayush Murarka (SFS ’26), an RA in Nevils who was involved in union organizing efforts, said contract negotiations offer RAs an important opportunity to directly engage with Georgetown.
“Now you’re sitting in the same room with Georgetown University lawyers and people who you can directly propose things to,” Murarka said. “Folks that are going to be responsible for what your contract looks like, and that kind of connectivity just isn’t possible without a union.”
Murarka also said GRAC has inspired a sense of excitement among RAs as they advocate for each other.
“If people who are involved in the union are passionate about it and there’s a strong network of people who are involved […] that kind of passion and support people have for each other is incredibly invigorating,” Murarka said.
GRAC plans to continue negotiations with the university on Oct. 30 and Nov. 13, with hopes to have a final contract ready by the end of 2024. Thus far, the negotiations have only covered non-financial issues. The groups will move to discuss RA compensation and financial aid in later sessions, which is typical for union contract negotiations.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get done with all the non-economic articles really soon and then move on to financial aid,” Xiong said, “We had a pretty lengthy discussion with our union rep about financial aid and Georgetown being a needs-based institution.”
One issue that is still being resolved is incorporating union orientation into RA training at the beginning of the school year. GRAC proposed using one hour of RA training for GRAC orientation, but the university did not agree. GRAC and Georgetown also began discussions on a management rights article, defining RAs’ positions as students and workers at Georgetown.
The university also proposed a “No Strike/No Lockout” clause at the second round, prohibiting RAs from going on strike and the university from barring RAs from employment throughout the bargaining process. GRAC and Georgetown have not yet reached a tentative agreement on this clause either.
Another contentious article remaining is the timeline. GRAC and the university have yet to come to a consensus on whether the final contract will last two years or four. GRAC hopes to keep the terms of the contract to two years—as opposed to the four years proposed by the university—to ensure institutional memory around bargaining.
“Once the GRAC seniors graduate and the juniors graduate, they have to renegotiate this contract,” Xiong said, “In two years, there will be people who remember how the initial contracts went.”
