Eight labor groups across the University and Brown University Health have joined to form the Brown University Labor Council — a group aiming to coordinate bargaining and advocacy across unions. The council cited the need for a “united, empowered workforce” in a Labor Day statement announcing its formation.
The council’s founding members span across campus, including the unions representing clerical and technical library workers, dining workers, campus shuttle drivers, postdoctoral researchers and graduate student workers at Brown. Off-campus members include the unions of more than 950 medical residents at Brown Health and Care New England, non-clinical and clinical support employees at Rhode Island Hospital and the United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5098.
The organization also has two non-bargaining labor groups: the Brown Student Labor Alliance and Brown’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
The BULC was formed to “strengthen worker power” and ensure the University and Brown Health “serve the best interests of students, patients and the Providence community,” according to the organization’s press release.
The council’s first constitution, adopted in May and publicized Monday, outlines the Council’s goal to serve as a bridge between campus and non-campus labor groups.
It also recognizes that “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
Under this principle, BULC Vice President and GLO Political Director Jasper Cattell GS said allied labor groups could organize a letter campaign or join the affected group for a “practice picket.”
The council holds regular meetings aimed at “getting (labor groups) more actively involved in supporting each other in bargaining and organizing new workers,” according to BULC president Maddock Thomas ’26, who also leads Brown’s SLA.
Each member organization is awarded two delegates and one vote, which will be used to decide on future council initiatives.
“We don’t want delegates to be voting for themselves,” Thomas said. “They’re voting in the interest of their organization.”
While SLA organizers first conceptualized the council about a year ago, Thomas said the first case of “significant collaboration” between campus unions came at a joint rally held by the SLA in March, he said.
Gordon Brillon, the BULC secretary-treasurer and library unit member, said that the demonstration displayed their ability to rally as a collective public presence, adding that workers on campus are “all essentially fighting for the same thing, and we all have the same roadblocks that we run up against.”
“We were frustrated with bargaining, and working with other unions within our local had already been so beneficial,” Brown Postdoc Labor Organization Bargaining Chair Caroline Keroack wrote in a message to The Herald. “We figured being able to work with other unions on campus was worth doing, and we could assist them.”
The council’s first event — an “organizer training series” on Sept. 15 — will feature labor organizing experts and union representatives who will share lessons they learned from their individual bargaining experiences, according to Thomas.
Emily Feil is a senior staff writer covering staff and student labor. She is a freshman from Long Beach, NY and plans to study economics and English. In her free time, she can be found watching bad TV and reading good books.
