UNION VICTORY: Student workers to join existing Pomona dining workers’ union

On Dec. 6, the student workers of the Coop Fountain, Cafe 47 and Milk & Honey voted to join the Pomona College dining workers union, which allows the student workers to bargain for inclusion under the same contract. After months of rallying and pushback from Pomona, they now celebrate officially being members of the union and are currently awaiting to negotiate for a more secure contract.

This demand for unionization resulted from workers at the Coop, the Cafe, and the part-time boba shop Milk + Honey dealing with unstable work hours and unequal work wages. Since April of last year, the student workers have been fighting for union recognition in order to establish basic job protections.  

Being pitted against full time workers 

Krasi Staykov PO ‘25, a student worker at Milk + Honey, explained that student workers and full-time workers, despite working together, were being divided due to Pomona’s strategically skewed pay. 

“We [the student workers] saw that we had coworkers, who were not students at the Claremont Colleges, who were doing a lot of the same work as us in terms of being at the register, washing dishes, you know, food and drink, prep work… And that they were making $9 an hour more than us,” he said. “We were really pitted against each other by Pomona because they would push out union jobs to replace them with us, as we were getting paid less.”

While the existing union contract ensured full time workers were paid a fair wage, Pomona could still replace full time workers with lesser-paid student workers. This left full time workers under the threat of being replaced by students. Instead of pitting student workers and full time workers against each other, Staykov and other students believe that all workers could benefit from being under the same contract. 

Fighting for job security and basic benefits

Beyond student and union workers being pitted against each other, Staykov explained how random workplace closings created a sense of job insecurity for students. Without any notice, students would lose hours of worked income made at the Coop without any way to be repaid.

“The coop would close kind of randomly, […] and nobody would ever know sometimes until they tried to show up for work. I was always worried that it would affect Milk + Honey, and that I wouldn’t be able to work,” Staykov said.

Staykov also emphasized the need for student workers to fight for more benefits, including meals for workers after their shifts. 

“We’ve also been talking about bringing back our food and drink that we got per shift,” he said. “Last school year, if you worked at the Coup or Cafe, you would get a meal and a drink for free after your shift. But this year they have gotten rid of that. They’ve given a dollar cap that’s not sufficient for you to actually buy anything. So people have to pay out of pocket to get a meal even though a lot of people are working lunch periods.”

“[We] wanted to unionize and get a union contract to be able to fight for that kind of basic protection,” said Staykov. 

Pushback and communication

Staykov explained that in response to the demand for unionization, management attempted to tighten their reins over the student workers. 

“Since we were requesting the union election, we saw management crack down a little bit on workers in terms of being harsher about people who were running a little late, […] being more insistent on enforcing policies that previously they had not enforced,” he said.

On top of the response from management, Pomona administration also pushed back by filing a legal petition to further differentiate student and full time workers contracts. The petition caused the unionization process to be stalled until Nov. 22, when UNITE HERE Local 11 contested the petition and the National Labor Relations Board stepped in, ruling that student workers could vote to join the dining workers’ union.

The election happened in early December, after student workers held a rally in front of the Coop fountains, culminating in a unanimous vote in favour of joining the union. This resulted in the student workers of Coop, Cafe and M+H officially becoming members of the dining workers’ union at Pomona. 

What’s next?

Since the election, Pomona College has yet to make a statement regarding the students’ unionization. While awaiting further negotiations, the student workers now are working towards negotiating their rights and acquiring an official contract.

“The goal is to sync up our contract so that we can basically jump onto the existing one more or less or at least be lined up with when the union contract that already exists expires so that we can be negotiating together for that one,” Staykov detailed.

The student workers anticipate that inclusion under the same union contract will prevent issues of unequal pay arising again. Staykov explained some other potential clauses in the contract he hopes to obtain. 

“[We hope to be] able to work in the other dining halls in the event of something like the coop closing, which were previously off limits to us because unionized employees were worried that we would displace their jobs,” he said.

Further, the student workers demand a more communicative rehiring process, to dispel more feelings of job insecurity.

“Something that we’re really hoping for out of this contract is more clarity, more communication and a consistent process when it comes to rehiring disciplinary processes, and hours changes at the Coop cafe or milk and honey.”

Now unionized, the student workers of Coop, Cafe and M+H are eagerly awaiting their contract negotiations in order to decide how to proceed.

“Now that we’re in the same union, that’s something that we can more actively resist and push back against, and that will also hopefully open up some other opportunities for us.”