Originally published in The Western Carolinian
WCU students started a worker union as a way to protect their rights but also address concerns and issues within WCU’s work environment.
The Undergraduate Alliance for Student Worker Success (UASWS) formed this fall semester after the president of the union, Aiás Magitas, was fired and began advocating for student workers. The Alliance’s main goal is “to organize WCU’s young workers.” The union became an RSO on Sept. 23.
Magitas was fired on Aug. 30 from the Department of Campus Activities (DCA). On Aug. 28 when he worked before he was fired, he had put up posters talking about the union and openly talking with co-workers.
When he was initially fired, the manager at the time didn’t give him an answer why but when he met with HR, they pulled productivity incidents from months back as the reasoning.
“Student workers are the lifeblood to WCU, and we deserve dignified wages and treatment for our work, regardless of how the university sees us. Most student workers think they can’t fight back but in reality, we’re completely protected and it’s within our rights to unionize,” said Magitas over text.
Raise Up the South, an organization that finds smaller unions and lower-paid workers to advocate for better working conditions and pay, is helping the union spread its message of advocating on a college campus.
Student workers from different areas of WCU talked about their concerns and work conditions at Aramark, Dining Services and DCA. Information given was from Magitas with the union and anonymous WCU student workers who feared they might lose their jobs if they spoke out.
Efforts and concerns for DCA
There are efforts to unionize DCA out of concerns relating to the wages and employee tasks. Employees oversee setting up events, run the UC help desk, deal with technology in reservation rooms, and many other tasks.
Jeff Hughes, director of DCA, was not able to give an interview during this time.
WCU Dining/Aramark: What is happening?
WCU Dining has had issues finding students to hire since Fall 2020. This has led to some locations like Which Wich, Einstein Bros. Bagels and 1889 Bistro to close for a semester or part of the semester. Most restaurants are operating on limited hours due to low staffing.
To read more about Aramark/Dining student workers and their opinions, check out this article.
We talked with several student employees at WCU. They wanted to stay anonymous for fear of getting fired. They compiled a list of reasons like wages, working conditions, customers and distrust of management from experiences of coworkers or themselves. Some examples are sexual harassment, certain conversations and unfair treatment, among others.
Without a full team, there are student workers who have had to take on student lead positions. Many are still waiting on back pay. This is when an employee performs for a certain job title but has yet to be compensated for that pay. A majority of these students work for Aramark. Students started their student lead positions without a raise and have yet to hear when they will receive their higher pay.
Other sources have said they are doing the same tasks as a student lead but have not seen a change in job title nor a raise.
One unnamed student lead told us that the unbalanced amount of work has fallen on some managers and leads who must work extra hours with fewer days off. This source mentions the biggest problems are staffing and lack of management. This leads to fewer food options and longer waiting times, which is why we have “hellacious lines that are stressful for us, managers and customers.”
Another source says their work experience has been good but communication between management and employees is a concern.
“This year they changed the base pay but did not clarify if returning employees were also getting the raise. No one would give us a straight answer until a couple of weeks into the school year,” the anonymous source said.
Jeffrey Marshall, director of Dining Services, declined to answer our reporter’s questions due to confidentiality reasons but did give The Carolinian a statement in an email:
“Catamount Dining Services respects our employees, values their contributions, and prefers to work with them directly. We take all comments about our work environment very seriously by investigating and taking appropriate action on any issues that are brought to our attention, especially any complaints about harassment.”
Marshall did not comment on if student workers could unionize or talk about unions on the clock or off. According to the law offices of James Scott Farrin, North Carolina, is a right-to-work state and employers can terminate employees at will, with exceptions based on discrimination and retaliation.
Students and workers are now left in the dust waiting to see what changes will happen and when restaurants will go back to normal.
