Labor

Ayoub Mohammed,
a former Chick-fil-A student worker and political science junior, is running
for president on the Labor ticket. Six out of the 10 members on his ticket are
also former or current student workers, many at Chartwells, the campus food
service provider.

Mohammed said
he hopes his ticket’s “outsider” status will allow them to bring a fresh voice
to Student Government and better represent the diversity of the student body. He
said he chose the name “Labor” to reflect the fact that many of his ticket
members are or were student workers.

Mohammed said
he had been thinking about running for a while, but the deciding moment for him
came when he met with the current SG administration about issues at Chartwells,
where he worked at the time.

“I’ve seen
these things first-hand,” he said. “I’ve experienced them.”

Mohammed said he’s
not afraid to be direct in addressing issues and said he hopes to apply that
attitude in addressing student concerns with Chartwells and beyond.

“We want to go
in and have a Student Government that works for the student body, not for the
administration or the Student Government itself,” Mohammed said.

Thomas Hobohm is an economics sophomore and one of the Labor ticket’s senatorial candidates. Hobohm and Mohammed met at the Student Union’s Chick-fil-A, where Mohammed worked as a shift leader. At first, Hobohm was just a familiar face amongst many customers. Eventually, the two started talking. Hobohm said he was drawn to the ticket because of Mohammed’s passion for advocating for other workers.

“I was like, ‘I
want to help you by making a website for your campaign.’ Eventually, I decided
I wanted to run, too,” Hobohm said.

Together, the
two started recruiting other student workers to join. The ticket has been
endorsed by the Indian Student Association, the Arab Student Association and
the Democratic Socialists of UTD.

Mohammed and
Hobohm said while Chartwells was the catalyst behind their decision to run, they
don’t want voters to see them as a single-issue ticket. The three main
priorities for them will be transparency within the administration and SG,
increased student engagement and increasing pressure on Chartwells to improve
conditions for workers and customers.

“There are
issues of inequality right here on campus, especially with some of the
international students and the more disadvantaged students,” Hobohm said.

Mohammed said
they also hope to improve access to mental health resources and introduce new
sustainability initiatives. The two said their ticket would like to make
improvements within SG itself, such as increasing accountability, transparency
and student engagement.

“There are lots
of people in Student Government who are doing their best, who are great
people,” Hobohm said. “But the history of Student Government shows that
outsiders are needed to get things to change.”

The two said
that low student engagement in SG was an ongoing issue as well but hoped that
their more direct, “common-man” approach could increase engagement.

“Currently,
it’s such a closed group of people. I don’t want to just represent the 50
senators. I want to represent the whole school,” Mohammed said. “I’m not going
to hide behind a desk and wait for people to come to me.”

Additional
reporting by Bhargav Arimilli