SLAM Backs Dining Workers

Nearly 1,200 students signed comment cards last week to support Harvard University Dining Services workers’ efforts to improve their working benefits.

Sponsored by the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), the gathered support will be used next month to help union leaders negotiate a more favorable contract for dining hall employees. Their current contract expires in June.

Dining hall workers are currently not guaranteed work over summer recess, nor are they allowed to collect unemployment benefits for those three months, said Adams House cook Bill Nicolson.

They are also not paid during Christmas vacation, intercession, and spring break.

As a result, dining hall workers are often forced to use their 10 paid vacation days to lessen the impact of the unpaid weeks during intercession and spring break.

“If I miss a week’s pay I can’t pay my bills,” said Nicolson. “I save money out of my weekly pay check while I’m working at Harvard so that I can get by over the summer.”

Currently, outside contractors hire temporary workers for summer jobs. Unless Harvard puts pressure on the contractors, they have no reason to hire term-time dining hall staff, according to union officer Edward B. Childs.

SLAM is currently trying to help the dining hall employees realize these benefits when their contracts are renegotiated next month.

“We are trying to show that the students care about the dining hall workers and that the dining hall workers are facing some really big issues in their contracts,” said Rosa M. Norton ’08, who has been leading SLAM’s effort.

“We got over 1150 comment cards in a week,” Norton said, who is director of public service for The Crimson.

“Our dining hall workers work incredibly hard for us, and we stand behind them 100 percent. Please take care of them,” one student wrote.

“To make life difficult for people who work so tirelessly to make our lives easier is terrible,” wrote another.

Norton said that SLAM is trying to find jobs for the dining hall workers during the summer months.

“There is a misconception that we are asking for 12 months pay for 8 months work,” Norton said. “That’s not what we are asking for.”

Dining hall staff members pointed out that while there are some limited dining hall jobs available during the summer, hiring is done mainly by seniority.

“All the managers have jobs,” said Nicolson. “I haven’t been here long enough—15 years and higher are the people that get the jobs.” Nicholson has worked at Harvard for 11 years.

But even the most senior employees are not guaranteed full time jobs. Childs, who has been working at Harvard for 30 years and is an Adams House cook, said that Harvard was unable to grant him employment for the entire summer.

“This year I’m getting laid off for five or six weeks,” he said. “There are stories of [HUDS employees] being homeless, of desperately trying to feed their children, and of going to food lines.”

“These are people who have pretty much dedicated their lives to working at Harvard,” he added.

Childs praised SLAM’s efforts.

“They’re doing a great job, and we thank them so much,” he said. “It’s a real inspiration to our workers to see that students are so supportive of us and our families.”

—Staff writer Peter R. Raymond can be reached at praymond@fas.harvard.edu.