Student Leader Files Unfair Labor Practice Charge Against City College

A student leader filed an unfair labor practice charge against City College District on Wednesday, Sept. 30 in a California Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB filing, alleging the district unfairly targeted her for efforts to establish a student worker union .

Madison Raasch, student workers union co-founder, said she was “harassed and surveilled" for organizing around facilities access and the student workers union last spring, starting with campus police looking for her at her workplace at the Women’s Resource Center and ending with a suspension from the college.

Raasch has been outspoken about various issues on campus like accessibility, student labor and budgets when she protested against cutting Free City while the mayor was on campus for the Diego Rivera Performing Arts Center groundbreaking, an unrelated event. The suspension, she said, was a form of retaliation against her organizing efforts.

The college alleged she wrote “(graffiti) on construction materials near the kitchenette area in the Student Success Center” on March 26. Raasch said she was the only one contacted by the campus police, issued a suspension or threatened with criminal prosecution, while there were several others present during that time.

Raasch said these acts were in protest of the approximately $50,000 construction project undertaken to enclose the kitchenette with walls, eliminating the only shared kitchen space in the building.

She was ordered on “an immediate suspension” from City College by campus police officer Jonathan Kolby.

“I think that [campus police] was attempting to scare, intimidate, and isolate me,” Raasch said.

In April, a report Raasch co-authored stating that City College had the lowest student worker hours among 66 community college districts  was released by the student workers union she was attempting to organize. After she requested a meeting with the Chancellor regarding the report, she said she was “suspended without due process.”

Raasch received an official suspension letter for “defacement and/or destruction (without approval) of District property”, through email from Student Engagement & Wellness, in April and an official warning in May.

“I want my allegations to be properly investigated and heard by PERB,” Raasch said. 

Chancellor Messina and campus police Chief Mario Vasquez have not responded to The Guardsman’s requests for comment by press time.