Scores of demonstrators marched past Pomona College President David Oxtoby’s house on Mar. 24 in an attempt to force progress in a dead-locked discussion about a unionization proposal by the college’s food-service workers.

The march began after about 125 professors, staff, students and invited guests gathered for a vigil near the fountain in front of Frary Dining Hall after sundown. Demonstrators wore orange buttons and armbands and formed a semi-circle around loudspeakers to hear speeches by Episcopal and Catholic church leaders as well as college food-service workers like Dorothy Crutchfield.

“I am so sick and tired of all the crap that’s been going on—all the promises that have been made and nothing has happened,” said Crutchfield, a Pomona dining hall supervisor. “The only way we’re going to get a change is if we stick together and we fight for what we want.”

Crutchfield and more than 60 of her coworkers signed petitions asking the college to sign an agreement to recognize a union if a majority of the college’s nearly 70 food-service workers vote for its formation. Workers hand-delivered the petitions to Oxtoby in his office last month. Nearly 870 students have also signed the petitions, according to Sam Gordon PO ’11, a student spokesman for Students in Solidarity with Workers for Justice, the group pushing for a unionization vote.

Oxtoby denied this request last month, citing concerns about the privacy of the so-called card-check vote as well as a provision that the college would have to be neutral. Oxtoby stressed that the college is not opposed to unionization and would support an alternative, federal government-administered process, which some union supporters said favors employers.

Demonstrators held wax candles as they marched from Frary past Oxtoby’s North College Avenue house, where they sang protest songs in Spanish. Lights were on in the rear of the American Foursquare house, but Oxtoby did not emerge to address the crowd.

“We were at the house during the course of the rally and heard the group singing both outside our house and afterwards on the steps of Carnegie,” Oxtoby wrote in an e-mail. “The rally seemed like a thoughtful approach by students supportive of our staff members. I can’t comment on any of the speeches, of course, since I was not present.”

The group ended its march in front of Carnegie Building, where they heard a speech from another dining hall worker before extinguishing their candles and dispersing.

Oxtoby and Workers for Justice agreed that little progress has been made toward a resolution.

Rolando Araiza, a Frary cook, said the administration was sending negative signals to its employees about their prospects of voting on unionization. He said the college should not oppose the card-check process because it has the support of staff.

“I can’t tell you how long we’re going to be fighting for it, but as long as it takes,” Araiza said. “We really don’t want to escalate to the next level, but if we have to we will. We want to be peaceful.”

Araiza said he and other workers, with the help of students, are beginning to approach college faculty members to gather more support for their cause. But Oxtoby said the debate had not advanced because no specific union is involved. “As there is no union in the picture (either an independent union or a national union) there have been no further developments on unionization,” Oxtoby said. “As I have said before, the question of unionization and the process to be followed remain hypothetical until such a proposal emerges.”