Syracuse University food service, library workers begin unionization process

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Drawing from the unionization of graduate student workers in 2023, Syracuse University’s hourly food service and library workers are in the early stages of forming a union.

There are about 750 graduate student food service workers and 150 undergraduate and graduate library student workers on campus. One of those students, Nawazish Shaik, said he was approached by the Service Employees International Union about helping students unionize and has since been helping them spread the idea. Students organizing with Shaik said the union would work to improve wages, worker-manager relations and “unhealthy” working conditions.

“The work environment (at part-time jobs on campus), which a lot of students currently have, is not safe or healthy, physically or mentally. (It’s) a lot of time and a lot of stress. Even though we work part-time jobs, we have full-time responsibilities,” said Shaik, a food service worker at Pages Cafe and caterer at the JMA Wireless Dome studying applied data science.

The student workers already have the number of signatures required to move forward with the process, with over 30% signing cards in support of unionization, Laura Jaffee, a labor organizer at the Service Employees International Union, confirmed.

The next step would be to file with the National Labor Relations Board for an election, said Drew Van Dyke, a graduate student studying library and information science who works at Bird Library. Then, the group would meet with SU administrators to become recognized as a union.

During a Feb. 7 Graduate Student Organization meeting, SU’s GSO Senate passed a resolution in support of the Hourly Food Service Worker Union Campaign. At the meeting, graduate students Bertram Probyn, Hussain Suwasrawala and Vinay Desiraju presented a GSO and Graduate Employment Issues Committee survey from spring 2023 that found the pay rate for a general food service employee was $15.30 an hour and $16.16 an hour for a student supervisor.

Although the pay rate has increased slightly in the spring 2024 semester, about 55% of workers reported working in multiple locations or having a second job, Probyn said at the Feb. 7 meeting. Both Cornell University and Binghamton University pay their food service workers a minimum rate of $16 an hour.

“This movement marks not just a quest for improved wages and working conditions but embodies a profound assertion of our collective values – a testament to the belief that the strength of our institution lies in the well-being of every individual who contributes to its vibrancy,” GSO wrote in a statement posted to its Instagram.

Outside of pay, Shaik said he does not get assigned enough work hours to live off of those wages alone, so he has to work multiple jobs on campus. He said most graduate students usually juggle three jobs — the most common being at food services, the Dome and residential security.

“(Managers) have the whole winter break to tell us when they will schedule (us) and when we can pick up shifts, but no, they just pick a random morning and then they send an email and then it’s like a lottery ticket. You come, you get it. If you don’t, you’re screwed. So you have to have a backup job,” Shaik said.

Suwasrawala, a graduate student pursuing engineering management who works at Brockway Dining Hall, said many food service workers are international students. He said they feel voiceless because many do not understand their rights in the workplace and that their status puts them in a “very anxious” position where they cannot stand up for themselves.

“The students are not given the respect that they deserve. It’s a part-time on-campus job but (the managers) behave (like) they have given us a full-time working contract,” Suwasrawala said.
“The expectations that the management has out of the students is just insane.”

Suwasrawala described an instance where he had been making omelets for a few hours without a break at the dining hall one morning. He had a coworker take over the station for him to get a drink of water. He was then told by a manager that he was not allowed to get a drink.

Only 4% of food service workers feel management is approachable, according to the spring 2023 survey.

The main goal of the unionization is for workers to gain respect from their employers, Van Dyke said. Library workers have concerns about work-life balance, lack of transportation options for people working late and control over scheduling work hours, he added.

“People who work in a library … they’re connected to the entire university community throughout everyone’s academic journey,” he said. “Having (our) word recognized, and putting ourselves in a position where we can negotiate with administration and where we can bring our concerns to the administration as a collective power, I would say is the biggest unifying goal of this campaign.”

If recognized, the group plans to negotiate a fair contract that addresses workers’ concerns at the bargaining table, Van Dyke said. In the meantime, he said, he will continue talking to fellow food service and library workers and encouraging them to sign union cards.

“It’s a really interesting time to be doing this because I think more people … are thinking about themselves as part of a collective of people and not as just singular individuals,” Van Dyke said. “All across this campus workers know that other workers have their back and are invested in their continued success.”

Clarification: A previous version of this article stated that the group had 50% of the required signatures for a vote. This was incorrect. The group claims it has enough signatures to trigger an election.