New Student Employee Union Gets Wage Increase
Mayumi Izumi (she/her) // Contributor
Rachel Lu (She/Her) // Illustrator
Organizers at Capilano University have scored a major win for student employees after a long process of unionization. Previously, all students employed at CapU were earning BC’s minimum wage of $17.85. However, as of October 2025, MoveUp and the University have reached an agreement to increase their wages to $22.21. This agreement also means that student employees are now included under MoveUp’s Collective Agreement.
Former CSU Women Students Liaison and CapU Student Life employee, Niko Williamson first had the idea of forming a union towards the end of her student leadership term. At the time, Niko was inspired by labour organizing taking place at SFU, and this motivated her to get the ball rolling. Unknowingly, Williamson and former CapU student Theodore Abbott were separately working on the same goal of trying to unionize student employees. Courier Editor in Chief, Laura Morales introduced them and the three students banded together to begin the almost year long journey to form a union.
Career Development Centre employee Keshav Makker was one of the students who supported unionization. He was working for CapU Student Life for one year before the wage increase, and Makker says he struggled to pay for groceries and monthly expenses while trying to balance his studies, “I felt that the student employee wage didn’t reflect the amount of responsibility we carry or the value we bring to the campus community. It was difficult to manage rising living costs on a minimum-wage rate, and it often felt discouraging and unsustainable.” However, since the wage increase, Makker told the Courier that his quality of life has improved, and that he is less stressed about monthly expenses.
All but one group of student workers have been included in the newly formed union, with research assistants being left out. Teresa Aguirre is an RA for a new program called Writing Lives, who was initially excited to hear about the student wage increase, but is disappointed that they were not included, “We’re just trying to make a living as well and this makes it seem as if RA positions aren’t as important as other positions offered to students on campus.” But she adds, “I really do enjoy my position as an RA even if the pay isn’t as much as other positions on campus.”
Although student organizers wanted to have all student workers included in the collective agreement, Williamson explained that because research assistants work for faculty, there was a chance that the university would remove RAs from the list of employees covered. Union cards expire after six months and, according to Williamson, they could not risk losing all the hard work that went into their card signing drive.
Williamson, who is now the student representative for the bargaining committee emphasized that, “Every single card made a difference.”, referring to the narrow margins upon which their union drive rested.
At a time when higher-education in BC is defined by austerity budgets and belt-tightening, CapU’s student workers union is a bright spot in an otherwise bleak state of affairs. And, in the face of looming tuition hikes for both international and domestic students, it’s likely that the fight for better pay is far from over.