Working for Workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.claremontportside.com/?page_id=2408



By Michelle Lynn Kahn

Editor-in-Chief, CMC ‘12

To many, the unionization process seems boring, like a real-life repeat of Norma Rae, sans Southern accents and Sally Field in booty shorts. But the latest political controversy at Pomona College has defied convention, pitting dining hall workers and their staunch student advocates against President David Oxtoby, a vilified personification of corporate America, and his administrative colleagues. Less than a month after Oxtoby first heard of the unionization attempt, the battle has already rattled the more activist Claremont Colleges. The situation is akin to Mortal Kombat, but with forks and knives instead of guns and swords.

To contextualize, last summer’s Employee Free Choice Act provides a useful lens for examining the situation at Pomona. Concealed amid pundits’ commentary on health care and cap-and-trade, the bill would change existing National Labor Relations Board procedure to force employers to recognize card-check bargaining in addition to secret ballot elections. Because the distinction is subtle, most have trouble grasping the differences between the methods: under current law, 30% of employees must sign cards to petition the NLRB to order a secret ballot election; under EFCA, a majority of signed cards would bypass the NLRB and automatically form a union. Facing immense opposition, the pro-union bill stalled in both houses.

Workers_for_JusticeDespite the issue’s complexity, the food service workers’ position is easy to describe in child’s terms: it is a “back-and-forth see-saw” or “merry-go-round” of attempting and failing to achieve change. That’s how Don Towns summarizes it. Towns, a middle-aged food service employee at Pomona, has an amiable and magnetizing personality that exudes jolliness. (Donning an “I heart America” sweatshirt, he proceeded to give this reporter a high-five and hug at the end of their interview.) Yet when he spoke at the March 6 rally outside Pomona’s Bridge’s Auditorium, his tone – sincere, somber, and imploring – was anything but jolly. For Towns and the vast majority of his food service coworkers, these past weeks marked the beginning of the public face of a long-term, uphill battle that they have been whipping up for six months.

Though Oxtoby first heard of the unionization push on February 28, Workers for Justice identifies a much longer timeline. According to the student organization, a committee of food service employees has been meeting weekly since October to discuss complaints and the prospect of an independent union. Towns confirmed, describing meetings divided along a language barrier – 75% of the workers, he estimates, are Latino. After separate English and Spanish meetings, the groups would “come together to share ideas.” While they initially invited two students to these meetings, workers maintain daily contact with student activists now.

On this point, the unionization push at Pomona differs entirely from the typical iteration – whereas union representatives tend to initiate and organize the push, student activists have assumed an integral role. Workers for Justice, created just days before the issue went public, has made unionizing food service workers via “card-check neutrality” its mission. Pomona junior Sam Gordon, who heads up the organization’s media apparatus, explained his commitment to the cause. “These are the people who cook three meals a day for me,” he says. “It’s such a luxury we are taking for granted… They are asking for something from us now.”

FULL story at link.