It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something's wrong with Yale's dining halls. Deciding how to fix it is more difficult. For the past year, Yale administrators have been spending a lot of time trying to convince students that the central problem with the dining halls is that workers' wages are too high. The Administration's latest assertion is that union concerns regarding the "Flex Dollar" plan show that workers will sabotage the best interests of students to meet their own selfish demands.
What's the truth about the dining halls? Up through the early 1980s, Yale had a reputation for the best food in the Ivy League. Since then, management did to the dining halls the same thing it did to the buildings: it ignored them.
In many of the colleges, food is now being cooked on 20-year-old equipment. Management didn't keep up with demands for innovation and experimentation; creative menus have been replaced with formula feeding, and "alternative" food lines have been eliminated altogether. Major restructuring plans were also enacted which hurt both workers and students now - most importantly, the elimination of dinner in Commons added 100 or more people to every college's lines. Taken together, these changes have made for worse food, longer lines, and shorter hours. As a last resort, after failing to make the dining halls a place people would want to eat in, administrators announced that, starting next year, they will add sophomores to the list of those forced to eat on campus.
Like a kid who's been caught stealing cookies and doesn't want to take the rap, managers have blamed these failures on everyone but themselves. Throughout these cuts, workers warned of the consequences and offered alternative suggestions - but were repeatedly told that they were not paid to think. Now that these policies have borne fruit, we're told that the problem is high wages and lazy workers. In fact, it's easy to figure out what needs to be done. We need better food and more creative menus. We need Commons reopened and less crowding in the colleges. We need dining halls to be open - at least for coffee and snacks - all day long, so they can be true social centers where students drop in for study breaks. We need a few dining halls which stay open past dinner, serving and delivering a variety of late-night food. All of these options are affordable. The problem is that the dining halls have become dominated by managers who lack vision or drive, and who care more about punishing the workers than improving the service.
The "Flex Dollar" plan is a case in point. This summer, Local 35 met with administrators to discuss a plan to expand dining-hall service. The union was open to a variety of plans, but Yale insisted on harsh cutbacks: pushing wages down to the level of casual workers, eliminating summer work for dining-hall staff, and slashing student wages by $3 per hour. Dining hall workers average only $23,000 a year (before taxes) - barely enough to support a family in New Haven. These new proposals would turn the clock back 20 years, to the time when one-third of the Local 35 members were on welfare. When workers balked at accepting this deal, management introduced the "Flex Dollar" plan as a stick with which to beat the union into submission. This was management's threat: either we accept these cuts, or the money will go to outside restaurants and many of you will be laid off in response to decreased business. We refused this bargain because we know that Yale can afford decent wages, and we know that we deserve them.
The central problem with current policy is that administrators insist on treating the dining halls as a "profit center." Yale is not losing money on its dining halls - over the past three years, the University came out slightly ahead on these operations. But managers insist that all dining costs - including long-term renovations - be paid for out of higher board fees or lower wages.
This insistence does not make any sense. Almost nothing in a university makes a profit. The English department, the library, the gymnasium - these aren't "profit centers," but rather services which the University provides to students as part of its mission. This mission is why universities are "non-profit." The money doesn't come from their daily operations - it comes from the endowment, from alumni, and from outside grants. By subjecting the dining halls to the ground rules of a Burger King, Yale is selling students short. And it is this false "deficit" which administrators have used to pit students against workers. That Yale - whose endowment recorded a $200 million surplus (after inflation) last year - would try to take advantage of New Haven's desperation in order to force workers down to poverty wages is reprehensible. That administrators now try to enroll students in this effort is manipulative in the extreme.
Everything the unions do is based on the belief that all of us have more to gain by standing together than by competing against each other. I believe this logic holds true for undergraduates as well. Despite widespread student complaints, the Administration has no plan to improve college service except for introducing frozen food and forcing sophomores to stay on campus. Joining in managers' attacks on workers will not result in better food. It will only result in students being isolated, having fewer allies with whom to work for improved service. So I believe students should ally with workers because it's in their best interest.
But I also believe students should do this because it's the right thing to do. As you walk around the campus, New Haven's poverty is visible everywhere. Yale plays a critical role in the economic health of the city - nearly one in 15 New Haven jobs is at Yale. It's possible that, if people get desperate enough, managers may get away with turning these jobs into casual or temp positions on which no one can support a family. But for the university with the highest endowment earnings in the country - and with a public commitment to helping the surrounding community - this goal is nothing of which to be proud. For both strategic and moral reasons, then, I hope that students will solve the dining halls' problems by working with, rather than against, Yale's workers.
Gordon Lafer, GRD '95, is the director of research of the Federation of University Employees.
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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