Urjita Mainali, Contributing Writer
For as long as I can remember, the people who make our education system run — the people who are considered some of the most essential workers in our country — have been fighting for protections in the workplace.
Teachers and educators face a variety of challenges in their careers, ranging from a lack of funding to a lack of appreciation rooted in particular cultural values. More recently, I have heard of the support educators need as they face the impacts of COVID-19 in classrooms, including worsening student behavior and a crucial need to assist missing educational milestones.
As teachers and education continue to be attacked through legislation and rhetoric, protecting our education system is an issue that goes beyond maintaining a standard of workers’ rights — it is how we build stronger and more supportive classrooms and school communities.
Virginia is currently a right-to-work state, which means workers are not required to join a union as a condition of employment. This weakens the bargaining power and membership of labor unions overall, leading to poorer working conditions and lower wages.
Despite this, university workers have continued to fight for the right to unionize, with organizations such as the United Campus Workers of Virginia spearheading movements across the state.
Unionizing is a mutual relationship between the employees of an institution, students and the university itself. When working conditions are protected and power is granted to the worker, staff and faculty can create a stronger school environment that supports the students.
That isn’t limited to just educators. It includes librarians, student success staff, advisors and faculty. It also consists of the custodial, dining hall and residential services staff — groups often made up of student workers — that maintain student life and school operations every day.
But giving our educators and staff more protections and bargaining power does not just impact the school community — it affects our education itself.
Right now, our professors and faculty do not make the decisions on what we learn and how we learn it. Instead, a partisan board of Visitors appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin does.
While they are meant to mainly oversee financial policy, they have developed a focus on attacking education. Youngkin’s board has begun to interfere with our curriculum, making controversial moves such as their decision to cut the school’s racial literacy requirement in 2024.
The decisions and powers given to VCU’s BOV directly impact the working conditions of staff and faculty, and consequently, the quality of education students receive at the university. The VCU chapter of the United Campus Workers — developed by and for VCU staff — often says “our working conditions are your learning conditions.”
When decisions about curriculum are taken out of the hands of educators, professors are forced to work in an environment of stress and fear — professors have scrambled to rewrite syllabi at the last minute as decrees from higher powers have invaded our classrooms and decided what we can and can’t learn about.
It’s not hard to see how the BOV’s involvement in curriculum will impact education. Professors may feel the need to cut essential texts or conversations from classrooms because they are “controversial,” which is especially damaging when these subjects are meant to develop the critical thinking and communication skills educators are trying to impart.
For staff directly involved in student support, such as advisors and those working in the Student Accessibility and Educational Opportunity office, the toll of managing each student’s success demands they be protected and empowered in the workplace.
Simply put, no student goes through college successfully without meeting their advisor, and so many students with disabilities — like myself — would be struggling without the work of SAEO. If they have deep concerns about their jobs and their ability to support themselves, how will they be able to support an entire student body?
Abigail Spanberger and Winsome Earle-Sears, Virginia’s current governor candidates, support right-to-work laws. It’s essential to know the deep history of these laws, rooted in years of racism and working-class oppression. These continuous attacks on education target the curriculum that reveals and works to dismantle the impact of these histories.
Students will feel the impacts of this battle, but we can secure our future success and further education by supporting those who make it possible. We need to have the backs of all university staff — professors, students and contract workers alike.
Opinions & Humor Editor Katie Meeker contributed to this article.