College Student Unions Hit Roadblock With Trump Administration

In November 2023, in the basement of a campus building at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), student workers gathered to share their grievances about their on-campus jobs—low pay, inadequate training, unpaid overtime. Among them was Madison Peon, a junior and resident assistant. Peon had become an RA because she needed housing, which she couldn’t afford without the job.

Illustration: Antoine Cossé for Bloomberg Businessweek

When she started, she was excited to work with fellow students and grateful to have a place to sleep. But her feelings soon soured: During training, which lasted three weeks, Peon and her peers worked 40 hours a week ...