Yesterday, NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson announced that all undergraduate courses will move online starting Monday, Aug. 24 after revealing that over 500 members of the campus community are currently in quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19 infection or exposure. Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation, campus housing will remain open. For months, the NCSU Graduate Workers Union, along with its “Workers of the UNC System” coalition partners, has been calling on UNC System schools to begin the fall 2020 semester online and limit on-campus student housing to those who need it,and to provide PPE and proper safety measures for staff. The UNC Board of Governors (BOG) and  local campus administrators refused to acknowledge our demands and insisted on providing an “on-campus experience” for students, in opposition to public health recommendations. As a result, we must now deal with the consequences of their carelessness and recklessness.

It is unfair and cruel to expect students and campus workers to bear the brunt of administrators’ ineptitude. Because of their decision to reopen, only to immediately pivot to online instruction, students must now make alternative housing arrangements just weeks after arriving on campus and while continuing their coursework. Some graduate students, still scheduled to attend in-person classes with more than 10 students, feel stuck in an unsafe, yet overlooked, situation. Instructors must once again prepare to teach their courses in a new format with no advance notice or additional pay. Campus workers must continue to clean dorms, serve food and maintain facilities in the midst of a known outbreak and without hazard pay, adequate PPE or leave options. This situation was entirely predictable and preventable. If we have learned anything from the administration’s failure, it is that frontline essential workers know what is needed to run the University safely and should be listened to.

In his address, Chancellor Woodson laid the blame on students for this sudden change to online classes, abdicating his and the BOG’s “personal responsibility.” Now students and instructors, who were excluded from the decision to open the University, must scramble to fix their mess. Classes should be cancelled for at least a week to allow students and instructors time to adjust and make preparations for moving forward. NC State has now revealed that there is substantial spread of COVID-19 on and around campus. Such conditions are a hazard to all facilities workers who are required to work in person. These workers should receive additional hazard pay, adequate PPE—including unlimited access to masks, face shields, gowns and shoe covers—daily symptom screening, a remote clock-in/clock-out system to ensure social distancing among workers, and free, accessible COVID-19 testing. Everyone on campus, including staff, faculty and students, should have their temperatures taken and screened for symptoms daily. Following N.C. Department of Health and Human Services guidance, any gatherings on campus or graduate, in-person classes should be limited to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors. Graduate instructors, faculty and teaching assistants should receive bonus pay for the additional labor required to abruptly transition to online classes. All student fees for on-campus facilities and services must be reimbursed. The period of 100% tuition refunds should be extended to give students adequate time to make informed decisions about how to proceed with the remainder of the semester. And finally, COVID-19 testing should be widely available, free and easily accessible to all students, faculty and campus workers.

Changes in university operations and the current economic crisis precipitated by the pandemic undoubtedly threaten the institution’s financial well-being. We have played with fire for too long by following a neoliberal model of higher education and will soon face severe budget cuts and austerity measures. These measures will fall hardest on the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers on campus. The battle for the future of the University during COVID-19 is just beginning.

In the coming months and years, it will be up to us—the workers of NC State—to protect our jobs, our health and our safety. The only way we can do this is by coming together to demand significant increases in state funding, an end to right-to-work laws and the Jim Crow-era ban on public sector collective bargaining, a guarantee to safe, secure and well-paying jobs, and a removal of the reactionary Board of Governors. 

The NCSU Graduate Workers Union, chapter of UE Local 150, along with our fellow workers in housekeeping and facilities have been preparing for this battle, but we can’t do it alone. We need every worker and student in every part of campus, in every campus across the state, to join us in raising the banner of workers’ rights! Together, we can defend our jobs and this institution.

#SafeJobsSaveLives

NCSU Grad Workers Union, UE150

Statement from the Workers Union at UNC linked here.