University of Utah healthcare and campus workers launch campaign to improve conditions

Salt Lake City, UT — On Saturday, February 7, over 100 campus and hospital workers at the University of Utah rallied to launch their “U for Who?” campaign. Workers are fighting to win parking stipends for all employees, safer staffing ratios for teachers and healthcare workers with compensation, respect for the university’s own meet-and-confer policy, and a sanctuary campus from immigration enforcement.

Utah Healthcare Workers United (UHWU) and United Campus Workers of Utah (UCWU) are units of Communication Workers of America Local 7765.

Workers turned out to make their power felt after weeks of shop floor conversations, phone banking, and canvassing the academic and healthcare sides of campus. The rally is a display of the growing organization of Utah workers in a state with “right-to-work” anti-union laws. Last year an attempt to ban public sector unions, HB 267, was defeated by labor and community activism.

“I have worked as a nurse at the University of Utah Hospital since 2014. I have personally watched the conditions at the hospital deteriorate over time,” said Jessica Stauffer, a nurse and president of CWA 7765. “You have value as a worker, and we are here to help support that. That’s why I got involved in our union.”

Ian Ferguson, an IT staff worker in the College of Law, said, “Our power comes from all of you acting together. Thanks to mass organizing by unions across Utah, HB 261 was sent to a referendum and repealed before it could even go to a vote.”

Echoing that the union is a vehicle for power in the workplace, Chapman Waters, a faculty instructor for the College of Humanities, stated, “One reason why our union exists is to give us mechanisms to exercise our collective power.”

To win their demands, university workers are now gathering petition signatures from workers and the broader community who support a safer and more dignified workplace for campus and healthcare workers at the University of Utah.

“You are here as part of a historic movement of ordinary working people,” said Ian Decker, a nutrition care specialist at the university hospital and vice-president of CWA 7765. “This organization, after only two years, is the second largest public service union in the state.”

The rally was organized by Communication Workers of America, local 7765. University employees in Utah are urged to join their union if they have not yet done so, and all community members are invited to sign the workers’ campaign petition here.

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