Student workers express concerns about racism and lack of support on campus
Grace Orellana, President of United Students Against Sweatshops Local 54, hosts racism in the workplace event. (Isaiah Hayes/The Black Explosion)
CONTENT WARNING: This story contains the use of profanity. Reader discretion is encouraged.
Students gathered last Wednesday to discuss the racism they face as student workers on campus. Multiple student occupations, from library employees to resident assistants, were present.
United Students Against Sweatshops Local 54 President Grace Orellana and Political Latinx United for Movement and Action in Society Vice President Stefano Raffo highlighted issues of racism and discrimination on campus, including recent reports of dining workers being mistreated, mocked and ignored.
“I used to work in the dining halls, and I can attest [students] immediately they treat you like s**t…It was very clear that they didn't think that we spoke English just because we worked in the dining hall,” Raffo said.
Orellana highlighted how this university is no stranger to hate-biased incidents, from the 2017 murder of 1st Lt. Richard Collins III to the 2023 racially motivated vandalism of La Plata Hall. Orellana pointed out many incidents on this campus, however, these were not the most recent.
This university’s Bias Incident Support Services office reported 291 bias incidents since September 1, 2023, with nearly half being targets of race/color or ethnicity. The students believe this university should support student workers more.
Tamara Zuniga, co-president of PLUMAS, called the university out for not publicly acknowledging racist incidents, saying there should be more focus on supporting its students instead of its reputation.
“The university really likes to pioneer itself with a super-inclusive environment, like one of the most diverse schools in the US, but it does sweep all this racism underground,” Zuniga said.
University of Maryland communications officials did not respond to requests for comment from The Black Explosion.
Zuniga says as a bookstore employee she faces students with political views who are “too confident” in making student workers feel uncomfortable.
She says after a student defaced a marker stand with political discrimination, she felt it was, “really reflective of the atmosphere or the culture.”
“This clearly isn't only in the dorms. It's also in the bookstores. It's in the dining halls, but [the university] doesn’t want to talk about it, because at the end of the day, it's about preserving an image,” Zuniga said.
The students discussed what student workers can do without the university’s backing, with many agreeing on the need for both student-worker solidarity and non-student-worker support as well.
Raffo said more emphasis should be placed on worker solidarity within the student body, underscoring the importance of community support to find ways to fight back, especially for minority student workers.
"We wouldn't be marginalized communities if we didn't have to join unions to be heard," Raffo, a junior government and politics and international business double major, said.
Workers' unions are an integral part of the effort to bridge the pay gaps between minorities and whites in America. A 2023 fact sheet by the Economic Policy Institute says Black and Hispanic workers that unionize benefit even more from unions than whites, boasting a 14.6 percent wage boost for unionized Black workers.
Roshida Herelle, senior technology and information design major, says student workers deserve to be recognized and treated fairly. She believes the support will come if students work together to brainstorm solutions.
“I feel like more heads working together to come up with a solution is better than one,” Herelle said.
Though the issue previously faced by student workers is the illegality of student worker unions, PLUMAS and USAS want to ensure student workers’ complaints are noticed and promote change. The students discussed how to do this in the future, saying the university needs to entrust their student workers more.
“Give the authority back to the workers, and how they want to address [the problems] because it affects them first and foremost,” Orellana said.
Raffo believes the university should address racist incidents publicly, along with holding itself accountable by also reporting the efforts being made to alleviate these issues.
“I think we're not the most racist University. [If] the university actually focused on being below average, instead of sweeping under the rug that they are average when it comes to racism, I think that could be a point of pride,” Raffo said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Tamara Zuniga is a resident assistant at this university. This story has been updated.