Hosaena Tilahun, a steward for the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth, the union for student dining service employees, works a shift at Ramekin, a college-owned cafe in Anonymous Hall in Hanover on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. In March 2023, the union signed a contract that set the base pay for student dining workers at $21.00 per hour, set up a schedule for wage increases tied to tuition hikes, and guarantees paid sick time. (Photo by James M. Patterson, Valley News)
After failing to reach an agreement on a new contract during seven months of negotiations, Dartmouth student workers informed the college on Wednesday, May 14, of their plan to strike.
The Student Worker Collective represents undergraduate students who work in dining services and as undergraduate advisors, or UGAs, also called resident assistants. Many of the union’s 300 members are international or low-income students for whom it is critical that their on-campus jobs offer a level of pay and benefits that meets their living expenses, senior Hosaena Tilahun, a student labor organizer, said.
Tilahun declined to share when the union intends to strike, but said in a Wednesday interview that the group does have a date in mind to begin picketing. Final exams end June 10 and commencement is June 15.
Dartmouth has “plans in place” to continue operations for dining services and residential life during a strike, said college spokesperson Jana Barnello.
Dartmouth and union representatives have met more than 10 times since October to negotiate an updated contract for student dining workers and a first contract for UGAs. The student dining workers’ contract expired on April 18, but they have stayed on the job while negotiations were on pause.
Dartmouth is proposing a base wage of $23 per hour for all new dining workers and a 3% annual pay increase, according to a fact sheet provided by the college. New UGAs receive a $2,000 stipend per semester and the college has offered a 3% pay increase every academic year and to increase its meal plan benefit, but does not cover the cost of required on-campus housing.
The college’s offer includes “significant increases to wages and meal stipends,” and a “response to SWCD’s call for protections for international student workers,” Barnello said.
But Tilahun said the offers are not enough, and “in many ways the college has not moved on key articles.”
The students are requesting higher wages and annual pay increases, better benefits, changes to pay structures for things like holidays, school events and bereavement, and support for international and non-citizen students.
In addition to being a union steward, Tilahun, a geography major, works as an undergraduate assistant and student dining worker. For her, unionizing and negotiating a favorable contract “meets our practical everyday needs, having good-paying jobs, but it also helps us build democratic power on this campus and be taken seriously as workers and paying students.”
In an 88% vote, the student workers rejected Dartmouth’s final offer to the union, which it sent the day before the dining services contract expired, according to the email sent to the college.
When they responded with a final offer two weeks later, Tilahun said the union requested a response from the college “as soon as possible.” Their most recent notice is a way of “reminding” the college that they are willing to take action.
“We understand that their strategy is to stall, so we notified them as a sign of good faith,” Tilahun said. “The college should not be setting the pace; it’s our workers that do.”
About 90% of the union voted in favor of authorizing a strike, according to the email sent to Dartmouth’s general council office.
The Valley News obtained copies of both parties’ best and final contract offers.
The students requested that the college pay undergraduate advisors hourly rates for mandatory training and cover the cost of on-campus housing that is required for the job, according to its contract proposal.
Though the college offered a raise for UGAs every semester and a larger meal plan credit, Barnello said the proposal for UGAs to be paid during training was a new item brought up in the union’s final offer and the group also “reversed earlier progress.”
“These actions are inconsistent with good-faith bargaining practices and underscore the parties remain far apart on key issues,” Barnello said.
In response to these claims, Tilahun pointed out that Dartmouth has a public relations team and lawyers on staff to negotiate with the union, while the students are “virtually rank-and-file run, we learn labor law in between classes.”
“For them to paint us as bad-faith activists is such a misrepresentation of the situation,” Tilahun said, adding “ … we have only reflected our unit’s best interest at the bargaining table, and nothing that we’ve proposed is without precedent.”
Another point of contention are calls for increased support for international students, including establishing a legal aid fund and protecting student employees from interventions by immigration authorities.
The college included a clause on noncitizen student workers in its proposed final contract, but the two sides disagree on whether the contract has to reiterate language or simply cite that existing college policy applies to student workers.
From the union’s perspective, the “only thing” Dartmouth has substantially “moved on” through the months of negotiations is increased paid time off and mental health hours, Tilahun said.
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