ANNALS OF LABOR Brown temps win bargaining rights BY ALEXANDER PROVAN

Their signs read: "Ruth: you can’t back out", "Every cook can govern", and "Living wage for Brown workers" — an assortment of stentorian declarations and puzzling slogans that failed to offer much clarity to entertained Thayer Street onlookers. On May 4, about 50 students, workers, and union representatives marched from Brown’s Verney-Wooley Dining Hall down Thayer, eventually ending up at University Hall, where the administration resides. Another 50 joined them to demand that the university grant its so-called "temporary duration employees" the same bargaining rights as its other unionized employees.

An earlier phone call from the office of Walter Hunter, Brown’s vice president of administration, had turned the event into a victory march, presenting a bit of a dilemma for the protestors, whose signs were already painted. After defending the policy only the previous day, Hunter said the university would acquiesce to the demands of students and workers, recognizing the temporary workers as union members, with the befitting rights of negotiation. The gathering responded with cheers.

Previously, according to Brown’s policy, "Seasonal, short-duration and part-time employees are paid an hourly rate and only compensated for hours worked." Though the temporary workers — there are approximately 350, including 80 of the 200 dining services employees — often put in up to 40 hours per week, they were "not eligible for benefits, holiday, sick or vacation pay, or pay for inclement weather days."

Three years ago, President Ruth Simmons established a minimum $10 hourly wage for Brown workers. An exception was made, however, for limited duration employees, who are hired for nine months each year, then fired, and rehired over the summer to maintain their temporary status. (These employees had no job security, as the university could hire them without specifying the duration of their employment and fire them at will.)

Valdi Williams was such an employee. After working for Brown for five years, getting paid $8 per hour for 35 hours each week, Williams finally received a full-time union job in April, washing dishes at Brown’s Sharpe Refectory dining hall. Two days later, on March 7, she was fired for supposedly using the restroom without washing her hands — she claims to have only entered the restroom to adjust her apron. She was rehired with back pay on April 20, following an uproar on campus, and a campaign to reinstate her, spearheaded by the Student Labor Alliance (SLA).

This led the SLA, along with many Brown workers, to pursue a concerted campaign to obtain for temporary duration employees the same rights and benefits enjoyed by their unionized counterparts. It also led Simmons to initiate an investigation into Brown’s use of temporary employees.

When Williams was fired, she went to Rabbit Hoffinger, a union steward for Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 615, which represents the full-time dining services workers. At the rally, he explained how a successful challenge to Williams’s dismissal was doubtful, since she was fired during a 90-day probationary period. Then the SLA got involved. While many workers are tentative about challenging their employers, Hoffinger says, working with the SLA is "like being with pit bulls who have no fears or concerns." He now hopes to be involved in negotiating a contract for the temporary employees that includes pensions and benefits.

Chris Hu, a Brown student and SLA member, expresses concern that Brown might renege on its promises. He says the university seems to have a habit of dealing with labor issues by "making promises and delaying them over the summer" in hopes that student awareness and involvement will wane.

Hunter, though, says administration representatives will soon meet with Local 615 "to begin discussions over the terms and conditions under which certain dining services limited duration employees might be incorporated in the current collective bargaining agreement."