Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 211, the Smith dining and housekeeping union, has reached an agreement for their new contract after almost five months of negotiations. The first official meeting for negotiating the new contract was May 25, and the contract was signed Nov. 14.
The union went into negotiations hoping for around a 20% raise over three years, and ended up with around 14.5% – 6.5% the first year, followed by 4% in years two and three. Housekeepers will receive $20 in reimbursements to buy their own work pants, a decrease from the $30 they used to get. The college faced backlash last year when it required housekeepers to wear provided uniform pants. Management was called out for demeaning treatment of housekeepers over the requirement of these pants, which some expressed discomfort with wearing.
“In the immediate, the people who have been waiting all these months to get a wage increase are finally going to see it,” said Ilse Barron, President of SEIU 211 and the Lead Chef at Chapin. “There are some people who have really been struggling; they’ve not recovered from two years ago when they were put on furlough for the pandemic.”
However, the new contract does not actually have very many changes from the current document. The union didn’t get many of their requests, like compensation for using personal electronic devices. Dining and housekeeping workers often use their phones during their shifts to communicate with management, receive requests from managers for overtime and have to download apps for this “near constant” communication. However, no agreement was reached on the issue.
Another concern was that dining management wanted to institute bench tests, where workers moving up or laterally to a new job would have to take a test to prove their skills. The union opposed this; Barron said the tests “should be part of the hiring process, not for people who have proven track records for sometimes decades of service.” The negotiations reduced bench test requirements so that they are only required for retail operations, like the Campus Center Cafe.
Traditionally, dining and housekeeping workers received four paid half-days off at the start of student breaks; these days were the wednesday before Thanksgiving, last day before winter break, first saturday of spring break and the day after commencement. However, while there has been no change to the language in that part of the contract, managers decided that this year the workers must stay all day. The union saw this as the loss of a benefit and wanted to change the language in the contract to reflect that, but no agreement could be reached.
“It just pisses people off. There’s no change in that part of the contract, it’s been the same way for 30 years, but all of a sudden this year we’re not going to do that anymore,” said Joe McNeish, a Chef for the Compass Cafe, who was on the negotiating team. “We have people who go to friends of the homeless, the Amherst survival center. We have people who work all these places the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, usually going and helping doing meals, but now they’re like ‘I can’t go’.”
Healthcare was one of the biggest issues for the union. Currently, dining and housekeeping workers are on the same healthcare plan as other staff and faculty at the College. It’s a “good plan,” but it’s expensive, and can take up 40% of workers’ take home pay. SEIU 211 was proposing a prorated healthcare plan where employees pay different amounts in proportion with their wages. No agreement was reached on healthcare, but Smith has promised SEIU 211 a seat at the table when healthcare is reevaluated in the next few years.
“The most important change I think we got is the promise that in the future, they’re going to look at the healthcare system, and do it like a progressive tax system,” said McNeish. “The promise that they’re going to talk about it is huge.”
Barbara Solow, Assistant Director for News and Strategic Communications at Smith College said that Smith “regularly reviews its health insurance program to ensure that we are offering a market competitive set of options to our employees” and “will continue to consider further adjustments to our program in the next year.”
The length of negotiations were a source of frustration for the union. Starting in May and reaching until November, this was one of the longest negotiations SEIU 211 has been through in recent years. The union negotiators and Smith administrators, along with both parties’ lawyers, were meeting over Zoom every other week for two hours. In September, as negotiations continued to stall, a federal mediator was brought in, who seemed to help move things along, according to Barron.
“We are pleased that the negotiations were successfully concluded. While we certainly would have preferred to arrive at an agreement sooner, complex negotiations like this can often take longer than anticipated,” said Solow. “We feel that the final agreement served both the interests of the college and the union membership well.”
“I mean I think in all, I’m personally pretty happy with this contract, but it was ridiculous that we had to fight so hard to get it, what little we got. We should have been done in June. We should have been done in July at the worst,” said McNeish. “I mean, really what makes me more angry than anything is how we had to grovel for it.”
During the negotiations, the union received a lot of support from the Smith community, including faculty and students. Faculty has been involved in SEIU’s negotiations for over a decade, sometimes sitting in on negotiations to express support for the staff.
“The college was dragging their heels and crossing whole items the union was putting on the table off the list. It was heartbreaking honestly,” said Jennifer Guglielmo, an Associate Professor of History who has worked with the union on negotiations for a long time.
The Smith College United Student Labor Action Coalition (USLAC) was a vocal student group during the contract negotiations, as well. They organized several protests, panels to hear from workers and circulated petitions to support the union to put pressure on the college during negotiations. Historically students have been a big source of support for the union, but USLAC is one of the more officially organized groups the union has worked with.
“We do have the students. The students are our only real power. We don’t come with any power,” said McNeish.
SEIU Local 211 renegotiates their contract every three years, though after its long negotiation period, this one will be in effect for closer to two and a half years. While much of the language was left unchanged in the contract, Barron hopes that they’ve set up issues like healthcare for the next negotiating team to tackle.
“In the long term, we hope to be able to keep communication going with administration and the management of the two departments, dining and housekeeping,” said Barron. “We want to be able to work cooperatively to improve the workers’ lives and the students’ lives. That’s why we’re doing this.”
