On Thanksgiving Day, over 100 campus workers will be left stranded as reconstruction of the James Allen Center begins. With limited job security protections, workers at the Allen Center will either be discharged or relocated with no promise of continued employment.

The Allen Center is the home of the Executive MBA and Executive Education programs on campus, with over 150 guest rooms and several dining spaces. Impacting over 15 workers, the initial stages in the first round of relocations from the Allen Center to other Compass locations will begin as early as Oct. 11.

Many of the workers at the Allen Center have been part of the campus community for several decades. They have endured perennial staffing shortages and well-documented instances of verbal abuse, all the while serving as the bedrock of our community. Many workers rely on this job to feed their families, maintain vital health insurance and keep a roof over their heads.

Seeing opportunity for lower costs, workers are the first to be cast aside by their employers, their identities erased as they are reduced to numbers in the profit-crazed calculations of the University and its subcontractors.

“I am a part of the University community,” one Allen Center worker told us. “Alongside my co-workers, we have made this University more than just a classroom. We perform our responsibilities with true care for each person who visits us. But to the company and the University, I am nothing more than an object. I wish that just one time I didn’t have to fight for our work to be compensated as we rightly deserve.”

All food-service workers on campus are hired by an international company, Compass Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom. In 2024, Compass reported an annual revenue of over $40 billion.

Through Northwestern’s contract with Compass Group, dining hall workers are technically employed by Compass, not NU. As a result, NU diverts the blame of worker mistreatment to Compass, while Compass evades responsibility for supporting workers through any major decision made by the University, such as the Allen Center reconstruction.

Hiding behind the cover of its subcontracted service, NU deflects responsibility, conveniently ignoring that it, as the contractor, has the power to hold Compass accountable. In the blame-shifting between two multi-billion dollar institutions, workers are left suffering.

Once the Allen Center closes for reconstruction, the futures of over 100 workers will be uncertain. Based on conversations with workers, Compass has outlined a vague plan for how workers may be relocated, but the company will not guarantee continued employment. Despite living and working in Evanston for decades, some workers may be forced to move to the NU Chicago campus or other Compass locations in Chicago, such as the United Center. Many may be laid off.

Compass’ decision to move workers away from campus comes in the context of reports of understaffing and forced overworking in dining halls and Norris University Center, also under the Compass contract. One worker shared that they resorted to medication to make it through the workday after being forced to complete the workload of several people alone. The next day, they had to call in sick, unable to work through the pain.

There is, without a doubt, a need for the Allen Center workers on campus, but Compass continues overworking those already in the dining halls while using the Allen Center workers to make profit elsewhere.

In ongoing contract negotiations between Compass and the Allen Center employees, represented by the union UNITE HERE Local 1, workers are demanding higher wages, comprehensive benefits and most importantly, job security. In 2009, as workers struggled with unlivable wages and NU launched its own multi-billion dollar capital campaign, students launched the first Living Wage Campaign. In 2020, students launched the second Living Wage Campaign as workers battled mass COVID-related layoffs. In 2024, workers are still fighting for dignity and fair wages. While NU’s endowment has grown to $14.4 billion, the University offers an insulting 80-cent wage increase and refuses job security for workers who have spent decades at NU.

“It has been incredibly stressful to know that I will not be able to return to work at a place where I have dedicated so many years of effort and dedication,” another Allen Center worker told SOLR. “I frequently felt pain, but I never took days off, because the students were like family to me. One day, they notified me that the building was going to be demolished, which meant I was going to lose my job. This was devastating.”

Workers across campus have firmly stated that they will not sign any contract that does not include job security for the workers at the Allen Center.

As students, we must use our privilege to amplify worker voices and recognize that our college experience would be impossible if not for the endless labor of campus workers. We are strongly positioned to pressure the University and Compass in ways that make the fight public. In solidarity with workers, we can show the entire campus, the Evanston community and the alumni and donor networks how little NU values campus workers and how that can and must change going forward.

The next several months of the contract negotiations will likely be defined by an obstinate and uncompromising Compass denying the basic rights of the workers, who are unified and energized in their demands for justice. NU and Compass will try to divide the campus community, convincing students it isn’t their fight to win, too. They will try to convince us they are negotiating in good faith and that the workers are the problem.

But we know who is responsible. It is not the workers, unsure where their next paycheck will come from or if they will still be employed in two months. It is NU and Compass with their combined $54 billion between their endowment and revenue, respectively. We also know who truly holds the power. It is not the few NU and Compass executives holding out on a deal. It is the workers and students, empowered in their collective action.

“During meetings with our manager, I and my co-workers feel intimidated and undervalued,” another Allen Center worker said. “But, we have stayed strong and demonstrated our capacity to learn and face new challenges. Today, I am asking for the support of the community and the University to protect our future at Northwestern, so that I can continue contributing to this institution that we value so much.”

As students, we must match the workers’ energy and show up ready to stand up for what is right. And in doing so, let us not forget the people we are fighting both for and with — people who have been a part of the campus community for decades, people who make the University’s intellectual and academic pursuits possible. People who rely on NU to support their families, people who have dedicated their careers to building our community, who are now being told — without remorse — that they are expendable.

Signed,
Students Organizing for Labor Rights

Editor’s Note: This letter represents the views of every individual member of Students Organizing for Labor Rights.

Students Organizing for Labor Rights is an undergraduate student group on campus. They can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.