Smith College Dining and Housekeeping Union Rallies

On Friday, unionized dining workers and housekeepers at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 211, joined by Smith College Libraries Workers Union (SCLWU), and United Smith Student Workers, held a rally to support the negotiation of their union contract. The gathering ended with a march to the Smith Campus Center, where the Board of Trustees was having dinner.

The rally featured several speakers from each of the participating organizations and emphasized the importance of supporting union workers at Smith. Throughout the rally, organizers led the crowd through several songs and chants that repeated how working together leads to success. 

“Smith wants to frame student labor as different from full-time workers’ labor. But we know that is not true, and that is a tactic they use so that we will not organize together when clearly, we do and [are] successful when we do,” said Amina Castronovo, a senior at Smith and one of the leaders of United Smith Student Workers.

Castronovo became involved in the organization her freshman year, when she started working as a student. “When I was originally applying to Smith, I met with the financial aid office [and] asked them how [they could] support me as a student. They told me one of my options was to be a student worker so that I could …  pay for pizza on Friday. That is how student labor was framed to me as a potential student.”

However, the struggle doesn’t just end with students, but continues with workers who have more permanent positions at the college. 

“We've been organizing for over two years in the libraries and working towards a contract for over 18 months,” Michael Walter, a librarian at Smith, said. 

“Banners all over campus are proclaiming the values that Smith claims to embody: knowledge, community, generosity … Where’s generosity when you would rather deal with the constant turnover and training because staff can't afford to work here anymore than pay [your] annual raises?” Walter said. 

According to Walter, Smith’s chief investment officer was paid 50 times more two years ago than the average worker — Lisa Marie Howie, the current title holder, received a compensation of over 1.5 million dollars in 2023.

“Student dining workers are undervalued and underpaid, especially considering the amount of reproductive labor we provide to this campus. It could not run without us,” Castronovo said. 

Workers were also met with support outside of the Smith campus. Jeromie Whalen, a candidate running for Congress in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District, spoke in front of the crowd at the rally. His campaign has focused on how unions benefit communities, encouraging him to come out in support of them. “My platform [stands up for] things that are not being stood up for in the old school Democratic establishment right now. Some consider it progressive. I consider it practical. It’s things that you need for a functioning society,” he said.

A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Whalen became close to the dining workers during his undergraduate experience. Whalen was also a union member himself; as a high school teacher for the last 11 years, he was a part of the Northampton Association of School Employees.

“I say this as a union member … I say this as a friend and a human being: When we stand together and when we fight, [we win],” Whalen said.

Representatives from the college’s unions have been meeting with the administration to negotiate higher salaries and increased autonomy in library operations. “We wanted to get better pay, but we also wanted to have more say in some of the library operations, and we wanted to be listened to and respected as workers,” librarian Jessica Ryan said. While this rally was specifically focused on contract negotiations of workers in dining and housekeeping, Ryan emphasized the need for all of Smith’s unions to come together.