Editor’s note: This article was updated 2/17 to correctly reflect Wall’s pronouns.

On Feb. 16, the NC State Graduate Workers Organizing Committee held a demonstration outside Holladay Hall in protest of current working conditions and policies related to COVID-19.

The protesters held signs with messages such as “Randy [Woodson] is not protecting the Pack, he’s protecting his wallet and endowment” and “NC State works because we do.”

The protest was a part of the Southern Workers Assembly statewide Day of Action. Demonstrations occurred across the state with workers calling for paid sick leave, employer-provided N95 masks, enforced social distancing and better workplace sanitation among other requests.

Alex Wall, a lab technician in the toxicology department, said one reason they were protesting was inadequate mask requirements on campus.

“It’s nice that we have free weekly testing, but we don’t have mask requirements on campus that are adequate for omicron,” Wall said. “The standard surgical masks don’t work as effectively. Other schools within the UNC system have started requiring and providing KN95 masks. …  The biological sciences department has bought a bunch of 95s, but they don’t have enough to hand out to everybody. So the University really needs to step in and use its weight to adequately protect us by providing the KN95s.”

Wall also said they thought the University needs to provide a better system for employees who get sick and have to stay home from work.

“So right now, the way it works for employees is that if we get exposed, we can use up to 80 hours of leave to stay home and quarantine while our test results come back,” Wall said. “But then after that, if we test positive for COVID, we’ve got to use our personal leave or our sick leave, even though the University put us into conditions where we could catch COVID easily.”

Manzoor Cheema, an alumnus who graduated in 2003, came to show his support for the workers union.

“I’m really happy that people are here to protest against denial of personal protective equipment or proper health care protection in the wake of COVID-19,” Cheema said. “But I’m also here because you may know the U.S. government recently had the highest increase in military budget. So we have more money for wars abroad, rather than saving people’s lives at home. And if the government would have invested in masks and other preventative measures early on, we would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

Brent Boland, a research assistant in the physics department, said he wants to see the University put better policies in place to help the immunocompromised staff.

“What we’d like to see moving forward is workers being respected and that’s going to come in the form of people that are at increased risk getting hazard pay,” Boland said. “It’s going to involve taking health risks, particularly the people that are immunocompromised, or have other types of comorbidities, taking their safety seriously and providing ways for them to work remotely.”

Wall said undergraduate, graduate and campus workers can join the union and can get more information by emailing ncsugradworkers@ncsu.edu.