International Student Worker Caucus

Fellow Student Workers,

Hey! I’m Utsa, and I joined the Organizing Committee in the middle of my first semester at Berea. I am also a member of the SGA and an international student worker. As an SGA member, I worked within the internal systems at Berea and realized our current avenues for voicing our concerns and creating change are ineffective.

For me, being a part of our union is about giving student workers a democratic say in the policies that govern our daily lives and work. Through our union, we can win our seat at the decision-making table and be legal equals with the administration. That means if the administration says they can’t make a change, they have to tell us why and provide documents that prove it. Think about how different this is from how decisions are currently made.

As an international student worker, I am determined to support my community of international student workers at Berea. Many of our workplace issues are shared by domestic student workers, such as lack of accommodations for health issues and disabilities, inadequate training, and scheduling concerns. However, as international student workers, we face additional challenges specific to our status. Many of us struggle over breaks with the hard choice of staying on campus or paying expensive airfare. We struggle with taxes and have very little money left over to spend on essentials like toiletries, clothes, phone bills, and even food when dining is closed during breaks.

We are building an international student worker caucus within our union to talk openly about our shared issues. We hope to create a space for building community among international student workers, create a channel for deeply understanding our union, and advocate for ourselves to create meaningful changes in our lives and labor. To join our caucus, come to our meeting this Thursday at 7:00 pm via Zoom.

If you are an international student worker, RSVP here and feel free to invite other international student workers you know as well.

We have the same right as everyone else to improve our working conditions by unionizing--regardless of our citizenship, visa, or immigration status. I'm excited to build our union and make sure that international student workers--and all student workers--have a seat at the decision-making table!

In solidarity,
Utsa Seth, Class of 2027, First-Year Manager, CELT