Photo By Patrick Resing Students March to increase awareness of the Working conditions of Aramark employess.

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Members of the Worker Support Committee (WSC), concerned faculty members, and numerous Aramark workers marched on Alexander Hall last Wednesday morning. The marchers hoped to have the Council of Presidents of the Claremont Colleges, who were meeting inside at the time, to agree to get Aramark to sign their Neutrality/Non-Intimidation about its workers.

Chanting first in Spanish "¿Qué queremos? ¡Justicia! ¿Cuándo? ¡Ahora!", then in English, "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" the protesters circled Alexander Hall chanting before settling down to rally on Alexander’s front steps for a little over an hour.

The march was in response to the WSC’s recent attempt to get an appointment with the Council of Presidents. This attempt at gaining an audience with the Council was denied last Monday when student leaders of WSC met with a multi-campus, administrative task force to discuss their grievances. At the meeting, the possibility of students participating in the next meeting of the Council of Presidents was rejected as a matter of Council policy, as reports to the Council about student issues are usually made second-hand.

"[It’s] not efficient to hear lots of direct interventions from groups," said President Peter Stanley. "We didn’t want to make an exception."

Scripps President Nancy Bekavac, who was in attendance, had earlier agreed to present the Council of Presidents with the petition and the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement the WSC had drafted.

According to Stanley, this was done at the meeting Wednesday, when the presidents "talked about [the WSC] at length."

In a general statement of support for worker’s rights released Thursday, the Council of Presidents responded with general support, stating, "We support a fair, safe, and productive environment for everyone who works on our campuses."

Later that day in a peaceful sit-in at the President’s Office, WSC members decried the statement as being overly general and without any real force or volition behind it. According to the WSC, this circumvented their primary goal to have the Council of Presidents force Aramark to sign the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement.

"The WSC would like to hear that the presidents are making Aramark sign the Non-Intimidation Agreement by twelve noon on Monday," WSC member Meryl Haydock ’01 said of the group’s demand.

One part of the agreement which was discussed by the presidents Wednesday would allow Aramark workers to bypass the Standard National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) protocol for unionization.

"Legal questions make it nearly impossible to micro-manage [Aramark]…On advice of [legal] council, [the presidents] have to stay out of that level of organizational activity," stated Stanley.

WSC members hoped that the presidents would make the renegotiation of Aramark’s contract contingent on their signing of the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement.

"There is nothing difficult in what we are asking Aramark and the colleges to do," said Pitzer Professor of Political Studies Nigel Boyle, "It is the sort of agreement that Aramark has signed before."

But Stanley contests that the agreement "goes beyond non-intimidation" in the fact that it mandates specific changes in unionization procedures. He stated that any action on the part of the College would be in violation of NLRB regulations and that if the College were to apply pressure to Aramark to sign the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement, they would be in danger of lawsuits from Aramark, the employees, and the union.

The specific changes which are included in the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement would be from the standard NLRB protocol to an accepted check-off system. Such a system would give workers the choice of either electing to accept or reject one specific union.

With this system, "a much smaller plurality of workers can create a union," stated Stanley. Additionally, it limits the choice to one specific union rather than unionization in general. However, the standard NLRB protocol has the downside of being easily waylaid for years in the courts, a risk not found in the check-off system.

Commissioner of Residence Halls and Food Brian Andrews ’01–liaison between students and Aramark administration–believes that the group is not going about its goals in the right way. "You have to respect [them] for getting involved and looking out for the workers in the dining halls," he said. "Aramark should be given assistance in looking out for workers’ rights, rather than circumventing management and going to the presidents."

Among the other demands of the students was an increase in salary to a living wage and more respect for workers’ seniority. Also, the students wish to expand health coverage, ease workloads, and create more standardized working hours. Support for these issues and were outlined in the student petitions circulating the colleges.

Andrews, however, noted that "currently even part-time workers enjoy health insurance, a benefit few part-time workers receive." The complaints from workers and groups like the WSC about shifting schedules were heeded.

Since the beginning of the year the 5-College director of food service has been replaced and since then the schedules for workers have been more regular. Furthermore, instances of discrimination and racial slurring have been investigated, and some people have been dismissed due to these investigations.

Another item in circulation is a faculty-drafted petition supporting the non-intimidation of food service workers. The faculty petition further asked that "the Council of Presidents insist that Aramark abide by labor laws that protect workers rights to complain about cuts, to discuss grievances and, should the workers desire, to organize into a union." Amongst Claremont College workers, a similar petition was been signed and distributed in support of non-intimidation as well. All in all, 2640 students signed the student petition; 209 faculty members signed the faculty petition; and 122 workers signed the worker petition.

For the most part, Stanley agreed with the petitions which he said "called for a lot of good things which everyone supports." He also admitted that "Aramark has not been well-managed" this past year and expressed his desire to solve this problem in a legally acceptable way.

Many at the march were doubtful of Stanley and the other president’s dedication to this effort. "[The Presidents] say that we have a community, but they don’t try to correct the injustices within [that] community," Siobhan Acosta PI ’02 said. Both an organizer and a speaker at the rally, Acosta felt that it was something that might "force the Presidents to take responsibility for the working conditions on their campuses."

After the rally outside Alexander wrapped up on Wednesday, a group of students headed to Steele Hall to officially hand a copy of the Neutrality/Non-Intimidation Agreement to Aramark officials.

WSC leaders were determined to keep up the pressure on the Presidents through Friday afternoon. In the post-rally debriefing, it was agreed that small groups of students would participate in a "sit-in" style protest to take place in the presidents’ offices on all five campuses. A group of 12 students were present at Stanley’s weekly office hours at Pomona on Thursday. He discussed the issue further with them.

The WSC plans to engage in further discussions with the Presidents and will decide how to further proceed later next week.