The Emerson College Students’ Union (ECSU) met for their weekly meeting last Wednesday to celebrate their successful union drive and the new possibility of a student union town hall meeting. 

The meeting commenced with an announcement by ECSU Leader and visual media arts junior Dylan Young. 

“This week, we’ve gotten 36 new signatures,” Young said, referencing their union drive form.

Under the requirements of the National Labor Relations Board, 30 percent of the workplace must sign a union drive to form a union and prove that the union can collectively negotiate on behalf of all workers.

“We are not workers,” Young said on this issue. “We are students, so we are trying to prove that as the primary shareholders of the college … we should have a say in the direction of the school. In our housing contract, tuition decisions, all these issues.” 

With pop-ups happening every Friday in the 2 Boylston alleyway, ECSU hopes to collect 10 percent of the remaining signatures to officially form a union. 

In addition to weekly tablings, ECSU hopes to engage with the student body through new collaborations ahead. These include partnering with the newly-formed Emerson Union for Resident Assistants and meeting with Greater Boston Tenants’ Union. 

Junior VMA and ECSU Leader David Sazdic said it is “a new frontier for student union workers.”

ECSU members also spoke of helping more working college members, such as tap desk workers, gain representation in potentially unionizing. 

“The RA union is not the last one,” Young said.

Young and Sazdic announced the union’s initial strides to mobilize by mid-March. These plans include an open town hall meeting for Emerson students and faculty. 

This meeting would allow different Emerson community members to share their concerns and requests for the upcoming issues the union is open to tackling. 

“We need to reinvigorate student workers,” Sazdic said. “This is a ball that is not going to stop rolling.”