When Alannah Gallagher took to the Marquette University streets on Feb. 6, she donned a black newsboy cap — an article of clothing not often seen on a college student.

But that day, the hat represented so much more to her than a personal fashion preference. That’s because it belonged to her grandfather, who always encouraged her to make her voice heard and uplift those around her.

Gallagher’s grandfather passed away in November, but she’s making sure to keep his spirit alive.

“I’m really carrying that with me right now and hoping to spread it through the rest of the student body,” Gallagher, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, said as she stood outside of Zilber Hall with roughly 40 other protesters rallying for a student union.

The group gathered to demand wage increases and better working conditions for student workers at Marquette on Feb. 6. The average student wage at Marquette is $11.88 an hour — a slightly higher wage scale than other private, nonprofit universities in Wisconsin, university spokesperson Kevin Conway told the Marquette Wire.

On the corner of 13th Street and Wisconsin Avenue, students, a handful of faculty and other adults were making their voices heard. Megaphones and signs in hand, members of the rally could be heard and seen for blocks, with messages like “Marquette runs on student labor,” “Pay students more” and “I work harder than Kimo!”

Most students showed up with backpacks on, either coming from or preparing to leave for class. Some mentioned they were skipping it altogether. The crowd, which formed in the middle of a bustling campus the day before National Marquette Day, received mixed reactions from onlookers — a city bus, green taco truck and semi-truck offered honks of support, while a man in a black truck sped by with his middle finger raised.

The protest, deemed a student worker labor rally, was organized by Marquette’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter and supported by the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin. Gallagher serves as co-chair of YDSA Marquette along with Kenny MacAskill, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.

MacAskill said organizing the rally required turning his beliefs into action, despite the initial nervousness he felt.

“I’m on the street, publicly proclaiming what I believe in and fighting for it,” he said.

YDSA Marquette had been working on the rally for months, Gallagher said. After helping a faculty union at Marquette protest last year, students in the group reached out to their professors and mentors to propose the idea of fighting for a student workers’ union.

Depending on who is asked, the reasoning behind needing this type of union at Marquette varies.

For Gallagher and MacAskill, it doesn’t stem from a place of personal desperation — both acknowledged they have the financial support systems in place to get through college worry-free. But others working in campus employment roles don’t share the same luxury.

“I’ve met a lot of people who’ve had to rely on these sorts of jobs to help pay rent and for groceries,” Gallagher said.

Student employment wages at Marquette range from $7.25 an hour to $18.75 an hour, depending on the skill and responsibility of the job. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage estimate for someone in Milwaukee County is $20.09 an hour.

“Most students on this campus are not making that, and I think it’s really important that we make a community on this campus where students can actually thrive,” Gallagher said. “I don’t think anybody can thrive when they’re only making eight dollars an hour.”

Luke Syverud, a recently graduated Golden Eagle and founder of YDSA Marquette, said he had to work three jobs as a full-time student to cover his bills. Spending that much time working only added to the existing stress of being in college, he said.

“I know many other students feel the same way,” he said in an address to fellow protesters. “So, for anyone who wants to see change being made on campus, now is that time.”

Long term, the group’s goal is to achieve the unionization of student workers on campus and secure a $15 minimum wage for all student employees. Additionally, Syverud said, YDSA Marquette hopes to earn the ability to bargain for improved working conditions for all undergraduate student workers.

To some, it can feel like Marquette only believes in carrying out their Jesuit mission if it doesn’t cost them anything, Chris Gooding, theology teaching assistant professor and UCW – WI member, said. As a result, he said, student financial struggles can be invisible battles at the university.

“They only show up in the classroom, halfway through the semester when a student sheepishly tells me that she had to make a decision between paying for books and paying for rent,” he said. “It only shows up in the email I get from a student halfway through the semester to let me know that he’s unhoused and can’t make it to the next several class sessions.”

Gallagher said the Feb. 6 rally — and more generally, bringing the idea of higher student worker wages to the university — should be a wake-up call for Marquette that it isn’t delivering on its promise of “Cura Personalis,” or care for the whole person.

The next step, she said, is for YDSA Marquette to keep up its current momentum and put pressure on the university.

“What we are asking for today is not radical. We are asking for a living wage, safer working conditions and a university that works with us rather than against us,” Gallagher said. “There is nothing just about a university that pays its student workers below a living wage and yet simultaneously pays its president roughly $1 million a year.”

According to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Ah Yun earned $527,380 in Fiscal Year 2024. Michael Lovell, the former university president, earned $902,977 the same year. Ah Yun’s salary has not become publicly available since he inherited the presidential role.

Under University President Kimo Ah Yun, Marquette cites a religious exemption in the federal labor law that allows private sector employees to form unions. In April 2025, pro-union protesters — many of which attended the student worker labor rally — protested the university administration and Ah Yun outside of his inauguration in the Al McGuire Center.

Grant Gosizk, English teaching assistant professor and UCW – WI member, said the protest was part of a public pressure campaign after Marquette refused to honor the national standards for labor negotiations. Through legal processes, widespread discourse and media coverage, the faculty group put heat on the university to negotiate on collective bargaining.

Not long after, the lowest-paid full-time faculty members in the College of Arts & Sciences received a 25% increase in salary — though the university didn’t directly attribute it to union efforts.

“The lesson that we should take forward with us is that when we fight together, we win,” Gosizk said to student protesters.

With the support of students and faculty, Gallagher is using what she’s learned — from her college classes, from her Jesuit classes in high school and from her grandfather whose cap she wears proudly — to go out and take a physical stand. But the rallies and efforts aren’t just about her, she said; they’re about the cause worth fighting for.

“We can make things better,” she said. “It takes a lot of people — and maybe it’s just naive to think this — but I genuinely think as a collective unit we have the power to make positive change.”

In response to the Feb. 6 rally outside of Zilber Hall, Conway, the university spokesperson, said Marquette respects students’ first amendment right to peacefully assemble and have their voices heard.

He also mentioned that in 2023, the university conducted a student wage study and implemented an updated student employee wage structure focused on “equitable compensation and market competitiveness.”

“This is not the culmination of a campaign; it’s just the kickoff,” MacAskill said. “This is going to be a long fight, but one day it’s going to be so notorious that the administration cannot even possibly refuse to come to the bargaining table with us.”

This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at [email protected].