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SU workers begin unionization process By Roxanne Boychuk asst. copy editor
Drawing from the unionization of graduate student workers in 2023, Syracuse University’s hourly food service and library workers are in the early stages of forming a union. There are about 750 graduate student food service workers and 150 undergraduate and graduate library student workers on campus. One of those students, Nawazish Shaik, said he was approached by the Service Employees International Union about helping students unionize and has since been helping them spread the idea. Students organizing with Shaik said the union would work to improve wages, worker-manager relations and “unhealthy” working conditions.
flynn ledoux contributing illustrator
Design students at The Warehouse Cafe are limited to using two meal swipes per day under new plan.
(It’s) a lot of time and a lot of stress. Even though we work part-time jobs, we have full-time responsibilities. Nawazish Shaik food service worker
The Warehouse Cafe is the only dining facility in the building, which is almost two miles from the university’s main campus. The cafe’s prices have also increased within the last year, said Samara harlotte Griffith, a sophomore studying environ- Vachani, a sophomore studying fashion design. Breakfast is now mental and interior design, said she struggles limited to $10 and is served from 8 a.m. until 10:30 a.m., according finding balanced meals while at Syracuse Univer- to Food Services’ website. Lunch is limited to $14, served from sity’s Nancy Cantor Warehouse, or “The Ware- 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. house” in downtown Syracuse, a place where she Griffith said she can’t maximize her meal swipes due to the takes most of her classes. “expensive” prices of the food. Before this academic year, she said With access to only one cafe in the building, Griffith said it she never hit her meal swipe limit. is difficult for her to manage her meals while going to classes. The amount of time design students spend at The Warehouse These concerns surrounding food access for depends on their major and year, said Zeke design students have been exacerbated this Leonard, coordinator of first-year experisemester, she said, following the addition of ence at the School of Design. There are two an updated meal swipe policy at the building’s models for studio classes: the first is designed If any of my Warehouse Cafe. so that students have class at The Warehouse “Last year, I would be getting all kinds of for two and a half hours twice a week, and the professors run things, and now I’ll get a salad and a water,” second has students meet once a week for five over time, after 12 Griffith said. “(Now), they’ll say I went over (the hours, he said. o’clock, it really meal swipe limit) and I have to pay with dining Griffith said she has classes back-todollars for the extra 80 cents or whatever it is.” back from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. with only a limits the ability to As of October 2023, Food Services did not 30-minute break before her next class at 12:30 do anything other have information related to differences in the p.m. During her breaks, she only has time Warehouse Cafe’s meal swipe system comto quickly grab food from Warehouse Cafe than eat in the cafe. pared to the rest of the university, according to before heading back to class. Charlotte Griffith the Wayback Machine. Since then, the website “If any of my professors run over time, after su student added a section titled “Using Your Meal Plan 12:00, it really limits the ability to do anything at the Warehouse Cafe,” which states students other than eat in the cafe,” Griffith said. are limited to using one meal swipe at breakfast and one at Denise Heckman, an associate professor in the School of lunch at The Warehouse Cafe, even if they have an unlimited Design, said that this year, students are at The Warehouse for meal plan. longer periods of time than previous years due to changes in the “They also don’t really advertise exactly how it works, so me curriculum. Now, many students depend on the cafe for all three and the people that work at the cafe itself have no idea what to do,” meals, she said. see warehouse page 4 Griffith said. By Claire Samstag asst. news editor
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“The work environment (at part-time jobs on campus), which a lot of students currently have, is not safe or healthy, physically or mentally. (It’s) a lot of time and a lot of stress. Even though we work part-time jobs, we have fulltime responsibilities,” said Shaik, a food service worker at Pages Cafe and caterer at the JMA Wireless Dome studying applied data science. Shaik said the union has about 50% of the signatures it needs to go forward with the process. If they get enough signatures, the next step would be to file with the National Labor Relations Board for an election, said Drew Van Dyke, a graduate student studying library and information science who works at Bird Library. Then, the group would meet with SU administrators to become recognized as a union. During a Feb. 7 Graduate Student Organization meeting, SU’s GSO Senate passed a resolution in support of the Hourly Food Service Worker Union Campaign. At the meeting, graduate students Bertram Probyn, Hussain Suwasrawala and Vinay Desiraju presented a GSO and Graduate Employment Issues Committee survey from spring 2023 that found the pay rate for a general food service employee was $15.30 an hour and $16.16 an hour for a student supervisor. Although the pay rate has increased slightly in the spring 2024 semester, about 55% of workers reported working in multiple locations or having a second job, Probyn said at the Feb. 7 meeting. Both Cornell University and Binghamton University pay their food service workers a minimum rate of $16 an hour. see union page 4