More on Pomona and Unionizing Workers

CLAREMONT - Workers fed them breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when it was time to turn the tables, Pomona College students rose to the occasion.

On their quest to unionize, 65 dining hall workers have sought help from the students with getting their message across as well as "finding outside legal and organizing consultation."

"It's hard for the students not to be connected to this," said Sam Gordon, a junior. "They literally provide for us."

On Tuesday, the workers petitioned the college's Senate in hopes of garnering support for a right to bargain collectively and without interference from the school's administration. Students also hosted a rally during Saturday's trustee meeting to draw attention to the workers' demands.

"They are a great support for us," said Benny Avina, catering chef at the college. "We've been struggling. They push you to that point. The unions are one of the last resources you have."

The Web site for Pomona Workers for Justice, maintained by a students on behalf of dining hall workers, claims that workers were not paid overtime and that promises for nine months of work were not fulfilled.

"I cannot guarantee (abuses of overtime pay) never happened in the past, but as soon as we find out we correct it," said college's President David Oxtoby.

Last year, on average, the college paid for 212 overtime hours per dining hall employee, Oxtoby said. Also, each employee worked 1,510 hours during the school year 2008-09, which adds up to 70 hours more than nine months of full-time work.

Petitions are also being circulated by students, demanding that Oxtoby signs a "card-check neutrality agreement."

"Neutrality agreement is essentially a pledge by employer that they will not engage in any anti-union practices," said John Lloyd, an assistant professor of history at Cal Poly Pomona.

Oxtoby said he is not anti-union, but favors an election conducted by National Labor Relations Board, He wants to be able to have an open discussion with the workers.

"I don't believe we intimidate workers," Oxtoby said. "There will be no harassment, no firings of anyone involved."

Workers have been forming unions either through majority signup or through a National Labor Relations Board - usually secret - election since 1935.

If a group of workers choose the majority signup, also called the "card check," NLRB can then certify their union if a majority of them sign authorization cards designating the union as its bargaining representative.

But under the current law, the employers can veto workers' decision to organize through majority signup and force them into the NLRB election process.

"There is a fear among union activists that employer's call for secret ballot is not really intended to protect workers' rights but as a delay tactic," Lloyd said. "It gives the employer a chance to discourage the employees from joining."

One year ago today, President Barack Obama introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the choice on how to unionize.

EFCA would have stiffen penalties against employers that discriminate against workers for their union activity. It would also allow employers and newly formed unions to use binding arbitration if they are not able to agree on a first contract. Under current law, employers have a duty to bargain in good faith, but are under no obligation to reach agreement.

But last summer, the "card check" provision of the bill was dropped, Lloyd said.

"It's a big compromise," he said. "Colleges tend to be more progressive socially than corporations, more open to accepting unionization. But we must remember that colleges and universities are also employers and that sometimes acts like employees unionizing may resolve in higher labor costs."

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Three Cheers for President Oxtoby!

I don't often have occasion to applaud President Oxtoby, given his political inclinations, but he should absolutely be commended for his steadfast refusal to accept anything less than a secret-ballot when it comes to the decision of dining hall workers to unionize. In the latest issue of The Student Life, he pledged to support the "fair, secret-ballot election" in a campus wide email. Here Oxtoby proudly joins the overwhelming majority of American workers who believe that the secret ballot is the best method to guarantee union elections.

The group that opposes that secret ballot is the self-appointed, Students in Solidarity with Workers for Justice. You may visit their website here.

I have no doubt that working as a dining hall worker is a less than pleasurable experience. Having done manual labor myself as a means of supporting myself in high school -- construction, demolition, mostly -- my heart goes out to the plights of the workers. I wish them the best of possible outcomes given their situation.

The student activist group says that efforts toward unionization in the past have been met with hostility on the part of Aramark, which was the provider of meals at Pomona's Dining Hall during the 90s and early 2000s.

Be that as it may, Sodexho -- the company which now administers the meals at the dining halls at Pomona -- is not Aramark and they deserve the right as to how their business will or will not conduct its affairs. A recent article put up on the Claremont Progressive's website argues that 90 percent of the staff supports card check. That may well be true, but from where does that statistic come? More likely that statistic comes from the students themselves, and here we have cause for worry.

Unfortunately, it strikes me that many campus radicals are trying to push the school and the cafeteria to consider card-check, a process by union members intimidate others into joining their union. The aforementioned alone writes, without knowing it has conceded that workers can sign the cards in their own homes. To me, this reads like, "Oh, we can show up and demand that people unionize." Ask yourself seriously: Would you be more or less likely to sign something if someone came to your home?

True, the article does argue there will be no intimidation because the workers seek to "form an independent bargaining unit without union affiliation," but the larger argument against card check isn't that some larger union would coerce the workers but that they would be coerced by another worker into signing a statement that they may or may not agree to. As much as I would like to think that this independent bargaining unit would be purely democratic, history indicates that it would have some kind of leadership -- even if informal -- and hence, a potential for coercion exists.

In terms of the underlying economics of the matter, I wonder about the wisdom of unionization in a field where the supply of workers is very high and higher still especially during this time of recession. The unemployment rate in Inland Empire is approaching 14% and it seems likely that any strike could easily be broken. Effectively, the student activists would be pricing poor workers out of a job.

The article mentions that one in five of the groups that go through the secret ballot process (NLRB), but couldn't that be because the workers don't want a union and that management would give better benefits if there weren't one? The percentage of union workers in the non-governmental sector has been shrinking, after all. And the article mentions President Obama's support for the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, but what it neglects to mention is just how bitterly unpopular that legislation is. At the time of this writing, it is mercifully a political non-starter. Indeed, liberal icon George McGovern has come out against the bill. With such opposition, why does the Left persist?

Perhaps it was never about making workers' lives better at all, but about control and union coffers being flooded with cash. Am I cynical enough to believe that? You bet I am.

As far as disclosure goes, I don't have a dog in this fight. I haven't eaten at any of the non-Collins dining halls this semester or last. (I'm off the meal plan.)