As the world has shifted online, so have the organizations working to make it a more equitable place. The Washington University Graduate and Undergraduate Workers Union (WUGWU) has changed their organizational structure and their advocacy to meet the unique demands of the pandemic.

Rory Mather | Student Life

“I know a lot of people [have been] tired of social media at various points of this year, but I really do think social media is a really great platform,” said Laura McDermott, a social work student and WUGWU member. WUGWU joins a long list of Washington University-based organizations that have used social media to reach people since March, including blackatwashu, me_toowashu and aglwashu.

“Everyone’s at home and we’re doom scrolling anyways,” McDermott said. “We might as well just doom scroll community organizations together, see what platforms we can boost and what actions we can boost of other allies and comrades and colleagues.”

Kelsey Wulfkuhle, another Brown School student who runs a lot of WUGWU’s social media, discussed some of the differences between the content posted on the Instagram account during the pandemic versus pre-pandemic times.

“With our social media right now, we’re really working on curating content that is both succinct and also gives someone something to do,” Wulfkuhle said. She said that in the past, content was largely aimed at advertising action alerts and ways for people to get involved with in-person advocacy work.

Now, WUGWU’s social media is working to advertise ways that people can take on smaller actions from their home to advance equity work or help boost the work of other organizations, like Wash. U. For Abolition. Additionally, the account is still working to recruit new members to its ranks.

“When thinking about the history of union organizing, a lot of it is very much word of mouth, sitting down, having organized conversations with people,” Wulfkuhle said. Because of the pandemic, WUGWU has had to shift to sharing content through Instagram and Facebook in order to recruit members.

Along with shifting the way it’s reaching members of the University community, WUGWU has also added demands to its platform to meet the current needs of workers on campus. On March 16th, the Union sent out a letter, with hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students as signatories, to Chancellor Andrew Martin and Executive Vice Chancellor Henry Webber, called “COVID-19: Letter to the WashU Administration.”

This letter included ten calls to action for the administration to take, ranging from ensuring that hourly workers would not “face a loss of pay because of building closures or suspension of certain university operations” to committing to “fully covering the costs of coronavirus testing, treatment, and vaccination through the WashU Student Health Insurance Plan.”

Two other demands were providing “instructors concrete templates for online instruction,” and reimbursing “travel expenses incurred by individuals for trips canceled due to the university’s travel prohibitions and suggestions.”

Building off of their COVID advocacy from the fall and winter, WUGWU sent out a Spring Semester letter to the administration asking for 5 main points of action to be met.

One of their demands was for the school to implement “more than two contiguous wellness days.” While this demand was not met, the administration did eventually add one wellness day to the spring semester due to pushback from students.

Another of their major demands has been for asymptomatic graduate students to gain access to COVID-19 testing. McDermott said this push has largely been to lessen the mental health stressors and fiscal burdens placed on graduate students. As of now, that the University has not agreed to the request for free graduate testing, nor has the administration accepted the majority of WUGWU’s platforms.