Hundreds of Northwestern dining and service workers picketed by The Arch on Friday calling for a fair improved contract with the University’s food service provider Compass Group. The previous nearly three-year agreement expired at the end of August.
For more than an hour, workers paced back and forth along Sheridan Road, hoisting signs that read “NO CONTRACT” and chanting phrases like “If we don’t get no contract, you don’t get no peace.” Workers intermittently rattled off their demands for the upcoming contract, including higher wages and increased retirement and pensions funds.
The picket line was the first of its kind in three years organized by UNITE HERE Local 1, the union representing NU’s subcontracted workers. Organizers hoped to raise pressure on Compass Group as contract negotiations have been ongoing since May.
“I want to acknowledge that we have people who brought family members, babies, we have folks from other universities supporting us today,” said Jayme Bagri, a lead organizer of the union. “We will be back.”
The demonstration came off the heels of a two-month “cooling off” period following the contract’s expiration, when the union agreed to refrain from picketing, according to union representatives.
One of the union’s primary concerns is job security for workers at the Kellogg School of Management’s James Allen Center, which hosts the Executive MBA and Executive Education programs.
The center is slated to shut down for reconstruction in the coming month, and union representatives told The Daily there are still workers at the center who have not been promised employment.
Valentina Espinoza, who’s worked at the Allen Center for more than two decades, said she’s lucky to have accepted a new position at another facility. But the months of uncertainty and fear she endured without any form of assurance have driven her to take a stand.
“It’s been hard to work with any kind of calm without knowing what will happen to me or my coworkers,” Espinoza said. “We’re fighting so that this situation doesn’t happen in the future.”
Other workers have been offered postings at the Kellogg Global Hub and other facilities on NU’s Evanston and downtown Chicago campuses, according to Eric Brown, who worked at the center for over a decade.
Despite accepting a position to work at the Global Hub, he said he still worries about the employees he’s worked alongside for years at the center who don’t have job security yet.
“It’s horrible to know that some of my colleagues and coworkers are displaced, misplaced or haven’t been offered a position anywhere,” Brown said. “We’re here to fight for a fair contract, higher wages, a better pension plan and job security.”
Most recently, in October, the union and Compass Group had two bargaining sessions.
The former agreement, reached after nearly two years of negotiations, included an almost $6 increase in the minimum hourly wage to $19.88 and a permanent extension of health insurance benefits for all workers.
Until a new contract is reached, those changes will continue taking effect — which many workers said are far from adequate in the current economic climate.
When he received a raise from the previous contract, Hugo Lemus, a lead cook at Allison dining hall, said he was able to quit his second job working as an Uber driver.
But now, he’s gone back to working two jobs to sustain his living expenses.
“Right now, I’m back to doing Uber because I don’t have enough money to pay my bill,” Lemus said. “Now when I go to the grocery store, I pay double compared to what I used to pay before.”
Members of Students Organizing for Labor Rights also rallied at the picket, passing out informational sheets to students and passersby. Signs raised by the student supporters also read “Compass, realign your morals,” and “Hold Compass accountable.”
“As students, we can use our unique positionality and privilege to hold the University and Compass accountable by taking actions that workers can’t so easily take and putting pressures on different points of the University-Compass relationship,” said SOLR member and Weinberg senior Julián Fefer.
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Related Stories:
— NU dining workers demand new contract benefits as negotiations begin
— SOLR-led walkout at Sargent Hall demands better conditions, adequate pay for Compass workers
