The Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) held a rally on Oct. 9 outside of Frary Dining Hall, where around 20 students and faculty members gathered to hear speeches, sing picket chants and paint Walker Wall with messages of support for dining workers at Pomona College.
Pomona and UNITE HERE Local 11, the union representing the college’s dining service employees, began contract negotiations in early September. According to CSWA member Sinan Walji PO ’28, the October rally aimed to draw attention to Pomona for “punishing workers for talking about the union, for being union leaders,” despite the First Amendment protecting union speech. Walji said the dining hall workers are “constantly under threat.”
“We need to be there for each other as a community because when admin encroaches on dining hall workers’ rights, no one’s going to stand up for them except themselves and us,” Walji said.
Wages and benefits agreed to under the now-expired union contract remain in effect until Pomona and UNITE HERE agree to a new contract, according to Pomona’s union negotiations website. Union organizing activity is also protected by law.
The rally follows a Sept. 21 delegation in which UNITE HERE representatives, dining hall workers and Milk & Honey student workers presented a list of demands to Pomona administrators, including pay for employees’ time spent at negotiations.
CSWA reiterated this demand at the rally. According to CSWA member Elias Pluecker PO ’28, while there is no clause in the now-expired contract that stipulates workers must be paid for time during bargaining sessions, “there is a part in the contract that stipulates that past practice is affirmed and guaranteed, so anything that was past practice will remain as such. And if they want to change that, it has to be negotiated.”
At the delegation, UNITE HERE organizing director Noel Rodriguez told TSL that compensation for employees’ time spent at negotiations has been standard practice in the past. According to Rodriguez and Pluecker, in this cycle, the college has not paid dining hall workers for their time at negotiations.
“[Local 11 and CSWA] believe that for them to stop paying to go to negotiations is an unfair labor practice and can be persecuted as such,” Pluecker said. Walji echoed this sentiment.
“It’s again another union-busting tactic because … if they’re not paid during negotiations and they elongate negotiations, workers will be much less incentivized to keep doing this because it becomes a tax on their own personal lives, time that they have outside of work,” he said.
According to a Pomona spokesperson, “the current collective bargaining agreement does not provide for paid time to participate in bargaining,” though the matter is under consideration.
“The College is discussing this matter with the Union and exploring possible approaches that address the interests of both parties,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to TSL.
Multiple rally speakers focused on the relationship between student workers and full-time workers, emphasizing that both are in a shared fight for better working conditions.
“I’ve begun to realize how deeply interlinked workers’ rights and students’ rights are,” Dora Wang PO ’27, Milk & Honey student manager, said to TSL. “I think for me, the struggle to keep Milk & Honey open past this year is so intertwined with the fight for the dining workers to be treated with basic respect and dignity — I don’t think I can isolate one from the other.”
In an email to TSL, the Pomona spokesperson wrote that the college is “firmly committed” to protecting student and employee rights while continuing union negotiations.
“Pomona College respects the rights of its students and full-time employees to organize, participate in collective bargaining and advocate for their interests,” the spokesperson wrote.
In a meeting following the announcement of Milk & Honey’s closure last month, baristas were told that Pomona needed to focus its resources on full-time dining staff workers. Wang said she saw this as a possible attempt to turn student workers against full-time staff.
“That’s when everything clicked, that they were trying to pit us against full-time staff, and part of it might be due to the fact that they didn’t know at the time of our active involvement in the union,” Wang said.
Lina McRoberts PO ’27, a CSWA steering member and Milk & Honey barista, said that Pomona should not be allowed to lay off workers from one group in order to prioritize the other.
“We’re members of the same union,” McRoberts said. “We sit at the same bargaining table, and we’re fighting for a contract together.”
Wang said she wants to keep students connected to workers’ struggles they think don’t directly affect them.
“I think in the school’s past framing of dining services, and dining management, and student spaces, it’s always been seen as two very separate things, and I think that that’s part of the reason why it’s often difficult to mobilize people to come to workers’ rallies,” Wang said.
Multiple CSWA members said they hope to raise awareness about dining hall workers’ experiences, as students see and interact with them every day.
“They’re members of our community,” Walji said. “We care about them, we love them, and I think the biggest reason why students should care is that they care about us too. They’re a part of this institution just as much as we are, so we should help them protect their rights.”
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