CU Boulder Resident Advisors deserve better pay and working conditions

CU Boulder Chancellor Philip Distefano; Provost Russell Moore; Interim Vice Chancellor Akirah Bradley; Interim Associate Vice Chancellor Dan Gette; Director of Residence Life Crystal Lay

CU Boulder's Resident Advisors (RAs) have been underpaid and undervalued for years. This has only gotten worse with COVID-19. Every day that campus remains open, RAs are placed at risk of contracting COVID-19. Despite this, they continue their work to create community, offer support, and maintain safe and clean living conditions for their residents, all while receiving sub-living-wage levels of compensation. Add your name to this petition today to express support for RAs in their fight for a safe, just, and equitable work environment.

To: CU Boulder Chancellor Philip Distefano; Provost Russell Moore; Interim Vice Chancellor Akirah Bradley; Interim Associate Vice Chancellor Dan Gette; Director of Residence Life Crystal Lay
From: [Your Name]

We are members of the CU community–faculty, staff, graduate workers, undergraduates, parents, and more–who strongly support CU Boulder Resident Advisors in their demands for a safe, just, and equitable work environment.

CU Boulder Resident Advisors (RAs) have always been frontline workers, but since the onset of COVID-19 their already under-appreciated role has become far more critical. Every day that campus remains open, RAs are placed at risk of contracting COVID-19. Despite this, they continue their work to create community, offer support, and maintain safe and clean living conditions for their residents, all while receiving sub-living-wage levels of compensation.

Despite the risks that RAs are taking to ensure the wellbeing of CU Boulder’s undergraduate community, they are only compensated with room and board. We unequivocally support CU Boulder RAs in demanding the following:

1. Hazard pay: Not only do many CU Boulder RAs live and work amongst residents who are COVID-19 positive–at times without even being told that a resident had tested positive–but they also must perform certain duties that increase their exposure to COVID-19, like cleaning the dorm rooms of formerly quarantined students. RAs deserve hazard pay for this necessary but inherently unsafe work.

2. Housing and job security: Like many other workers in the CU system, RAs are employed ‘at-will,’ which means that they can be fired at any time and without cause. While we oppose all at-will employment contracts, they are particularly insidious in the case of RAs, whose housing is fundamentally tied to their jobs. We demand housing and job security for RAs, which entails an end to at-will employment as well as protections which allow RAs to remain in their housing if they lose their jobs.

3. Raise the limit on outside work hours: RAs cannot live on room and board alone, but this is essentially what CU Boulder insists upon when they restrict RAs’ ability to accept other on-campus employment. RAs need other sources of income to pay for tuition and other living expenses. We demand that RAs be permitted to take on additional on-campus employment exceeding the current limit of 5 hours/week.

We acknowledge that CU Boulder ResLife has recently attempted to improve conditions for RAs by offering them N95 masks and a one-time-only $500 cash payment. However, we share many RAs concerns that these measures are too little, too late. The time is now to treat RAs with the dignity and respect that they deserve by meeting their demands for hazard pay, housing and job security, and raising the limit on outside work hours.