The New School Communist Student Group will stage a protest in the cafeteria Tuesday in response to impending layoffs of current cafeteria workers.
The occupation will start at 11:30 a.m. on May 1, which is International Workers’ Day or May Day, and go on indefinitely, according to a post on the group’s Facebook page.
According to the group’s post,“WE WANT TO INTERFERE AND WE WANT TO INTERFERE TO THE VERY END!”
The majority of the 45 people who work in the cafeteria aren’t expected to be rehired, according to administrators. Stephen Stabile, vice president of finance and business, and Ed Verdi, senior director of business operations, encouraged current workers to reapply but said some cafeteria positions will go to students.
Workers could be reassigned to other Chartwells facilities, but expect that if they were, they would lose the seniority, benefits and high pay they have accrued over their years at The New School.
“If this goes down, I lose everything, basically. Pension, health insurance. I can’t pay my bills with no job. I would have to start all over again with nothing,” said Rodrick Prude, a 54-year-old cafeteria worker who also goes by the name Prince.
Flyers distributed by the communist group call the layoffs “disgusting and unacceptable.”
The flyers also feature a cartoon in which a man is about to chop off the head of another man with the title, “Students and Workers Unite to Stop Workers from Getting the Axe.”
The group is demanding “every job saved, higher wages, same benefits, tuition vouchers, resignation of Steve Stabile, worker-student control of the cafeteria” according to posters hung around campus.
The contract between The New School and Chartwells, the company that currently employs the cafeteria workers, is set to end on July 1.
The termination of the contract was first announced on March 5, and has since garnered attention from the university community. Cafeteria workers, who are represented along with other Chartwells locations by the UNITE HERE! Local 100 union, began distributing flyers protesting the layoffs.
Photo by Orlando Mendiola.