Affordable health care, livable wages and immigrants’ rights have fallen dead center in the crosshairs of the administration of President Donald J. Trump, and people everywhere are fighting back—including students and workers on our own campus.
On Friday, March 31 at 6:30 p.m. in 320 Shillman Hall, dining hall workers will speak out about their ongoing struggles to achieve just employment and better working conditions.
The dining hall workers’ first union contract expires this August, and in light of the national political climate, a better contract that ensures affordable health care, a living wage and security for immigrant workers is critical. Huskies Organizing With Labor (HOWL), a growing coalition of student groups, invites all Northeastern students, staff and faculty to join us this Friday for an evening of listening, learning and community building.
Many of us have spent considerable time in the dining halls, yet we rarely get the opportunity to hear the stories and struggles of those who serve us food and make our experience here so comfortable. In 2012, during the dining hall workers’ campaign to unionize with UNITE HERE! Local 26, a campus speakout drew a crowd too big to fit into one lecture hall, requiring a livestream for the overflow. Students went on to play a key support role in the workers’ campaign.
Since the formation of a union, working conditions in the dining halls have improved considerably, but the need for significant change still remains. Cuts in working hours have counteracted wage increases, and many food service workers struggle to make ends meet on an average annual salary of just $20,520 (calculated from $14.40/hour average wage, 37.5 hours per week, 38 weeks per year).
In a city with a median income of $54,485 and at a university whose president took home $1,090,414 just last year, the situation facing dining hall workers reflects the supremacy of profits over people in Northeastern’s financial calculus.
For workers to win a contract with meaningful improvements, students must once again show Northeastern’s administration whose side we are on. Although taking on an institution as large and powerful as Northeastern might seem like an insurmountable challenge, workers and students at Harvard University this past fall proved that it can be done. After a historic three-week strike and two student walkouts, Harvard agreed to pay food service workers a minimum annual income of $35,000 and reversed a plan to increase healthcare costs.
Building student and worker power is not only an important way to resist Trump’s destructive policies and rhetoric, but also a means to strengthen our campus community. Our vision for a more just and inclusive Northeastern requires active student support for dining hall workers and the related work of groups like Sanctuary Campus Coalition, DivestNU, Sexual Assault Response Coalition, Students Against Institutional Discrimination and others working for justice on and off campus.
The speakout on Friday is part of our effort to raise awareness about the situation dining workers face and to grow a base of support that workers can rely on throughout contract negotiations. In this political moment, as anti-worker and anti-immigrant forces consolidate power, our response must be to build our own power based in community support and solidarity.
Come out to our events and coalition meetings, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or shoot us an email ([email protected]) to talk about what we can build—and win—together.
– Huskies Organizing With Labor formed to support dining hall workers’ unionization in 2012, and students re-established the coalition last semester ahead of the upcoming contract campaign. To contact HOWL, message the Facebook page or e-mail [email protected].
