Students held a sit-in inside Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center on March 11 in support of dining workers on campus. Students were able to meet with the administration to voice their concerns and hear the university’s plans.
Lois Stanley, Vice President for Campus Planning and Operations, and Stew Uretsky, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration, met on March 11 with approximately 30 students, Julie Jette— Assistant Vice President of communications— wrote to The Hoot in an email. Stanley and Uretsky spoke with students regarding their concerns for dining service workers as the university begins to make its selection for a new vendor.
According to Jette’s email, “[Stanley] and [Uretsky] had a productive, respectful dialog with the students and appreciated their viewpoints.”
Jette wrote on behalf of the university’s administration that they are in agreement with the student goals seeking to protect the employment of current dining workers as the new contract is signed. The new dining vendor is set to start in July 2022.
“The university demonstrated how much we value our colleagues when we financially enabled Sodexo to refrain from laying off staff when COVID-19 forced us to shift to all-remote learning in March 2020,” wrote Jette. This commitment, as Jette describes, to dining workers has not wavered and each of the five companies which presented for the contract bid has, “affirmed that the current hourly staff will all be hired.” Though Jette noted that the hiring process has changed so workers may be denied hire on the basis of background checks and drug testing. If Sodexo receives the contract again, the workers will be retained, according to Jette. Uretsky explained in the meeting with students, “we have been working with sodexo throughout the pandemic in terms of ensuring that those staff working for them… did not lose their jobs, very important commitment we made to sodexo…all of the workers throughout the pandemic maintained jobs… [we did not have] a single layoff relating to [COVID-19] at our university, feel proud of being able to say that.”
Students voiced concerns regarding the retention of workers. Jette wrote to The Hoot that, “the dialogue was also useful to clarify a number of questions by the students, such as confirming that Commencement activities will be catered by Sodexo. Also, one of the student representatives who sits on the Dining RFP Steering Committee was able to describe the ways in which broad student input into the final decision-making process is being sought.”
Within the meeting itself, Stanley explained to students that the, “decision to go from exclusivity to non-exclusivity for catering happened two years ago, as a result of… lots of discussion with student groups, that is where the request came up with our community to drop exclusivity.” Uretsky explained, “[The] exclusivity clause was what we were responsible for when we negotiated the two year connection with Sodexo…in part to meet community response that we want to carve out to have the flexibility [for small event delivery]. Sodexo themselves were not interested in maintaining that… [It] does not move the needle in terms of staffing in any way- not going to lay off anybody–matter of meeting community response… people feeling that they had to sneak a food truck on [campus]. ”
Stanley explained how the $250 threshold for small events came in for, “smaller pizza-like events for student groups to have some latitude, as we heard they were exercising anyway,” and Uretsky added that the $250 threshold existed, “so it wasn’t subjective [as to] what the definition of a small event was.”
After the meeting, Marrissa Small ’22, a Brandeis Leftist Union (BLU) member, explained to The Hoot that, “they put all of the issues [on] when people were having events below $250 with non-union people…they shifted all the blame onto student groups and people coming in as freshmans and not knowing that, they never admitted that it was university-sponsored events that we know happened, that were catered by non union workers.” Ellis Huang ’23, another BLU member, added, “The issue is very clear on the administrative side. We weren’t doing student education or whatever before the contract was changed, and it was only after the contract was changed that we are seeing any of these issues so it doesn’t make any sense to provide student education as the solution.”
During the meeting, in response to student Joshua Benson’s ’23 concern that large events were being billed as multiple smaller events, Uretsky responded by saying, “That’s wrong, [and] violates [our] spirit and intent, if we were aware [we] would absolutely follow up…that is not allowed.” Uretsky explained that this, “ kind of activity [may be] happening [at the] local level- impossible to be aware unless someone made us aware.” When Benson responded by requesting that administration communicate directly with the Union, Uretsky responded by saying, “ We aren’t part of the contract between sodexo and the union, so we can’t negotiate the terms and conditions… student, staff, faculty etc are stakeholders in the dining vendors, which is why we are holding open sessions…[The] union negotiates with the food service vendor, not us.” Uretsky later added, “ the legal relationship doesn’t mean that we can’t talk to and communicate with the workers.”
Small explained after the meeting, “If you put that language in the contract, it just can not happen. That’s the easy solution if you don’t want all this stuff happening.” Huang explained that, “they also got caught up on catering workers under $250, but the point is that if there are catering workers there- then they should be union, period. If there’s staff there, they should be union, period (‘regardless of the money,’ added Small), if there’s an issue with the size of the event, then fine. Maybe there can be more in addition to the union workers, but not as a replacement.”
After the meeting and protest, Huang explained, “Understanding catering and…dining services is well within their job descriptions, and they should have all of this information already. In addition to that, the petition was released in November and we were very specific in the language of the petition. I think that if 10 percent of the student body signed onto it there’s no way the petition language is not specific or hard to understand, they’ve had plenty of time to respond to this, so shame on them for pivoting during the entire meeting… saying we need more time to look on it.”
Stanley and Uretsky are going to be following up on issues where additional information is needed, according to Jette. An issue which is still being sorted out is in regards to the role of catering staff at small gatherings for example when a small group of students or employees order sandwiches or pizza from an outside provider. Once matters get figured out, Stanley and Uretsky will update community members, they assume there should be feedback in the next week.
“[Stanley] and [Uretsky] look forward to continuing the constructive dialogue with the students, and maintaining the lines of communication that have now been opened,” wrote Jette.
Jaiden Wolfman, a member of the BLU, explained that they would be following up with Stanley and Uretsky about their investigation on March 18. Wolfman’s concluded by exclaiming, “People in power like to pretend they have a lot less power and influence than they actually do; and that upsets me because they can change, they can make material change to policy…They’re just refusing too out of the excuse of its too much work, it’s not their position, we don’t have the time or resources. And it’s just all a facade, and none of it is real, and they just don’t wanna do the work that they are being paid to do.”
