The UC Santa Barbara student dining hall workers have filed for union recognition, which would be the first union of its kind in the university system.

A supermajority of student dining workers signed authorization cards to form the Student Dining Labor Union, and they plan to join UAW Local 2865, an existing union for student workers at UC schools. Their goals are to negotiate higher wages, sick leave, overtime pay and better working conditions. 

Jasmine Rebollar, a third-year marine biology student, has been a student worker at the De La Guerra Dining Commons for two years. She said she knows how to work all positions in the dining hall; some positions she was trained for, and others she figured out on her own.

“A lot of us are working in the dining halls because that’s the only way we can actually pay for tuition, that’s the way that we can pay our rent, and other necessities, and at the same time, we’re also balancing our school life,” Rebollar said. 

Over time, Rebollar said, she has been given an increased amount of responsibility without an increase in pay.

“As time goes on, they become more reliant on you, and the pay is not very reflective of that,” Rebollar said.

As of December, student dining workers were making $15.75 an hour and were usually scheduled for 15 hours a week, making many students having to pick up extra shifts or work multiple jobs to get by.

“We only get a quarter above minimum wage, and yet we’re basically supposed to know how to work every single position and know how to do every single little task and also be able to run the dining hall at a level that is presentable,” Rebollar said.

It’s the first undergraduate student dining hall worker union ever formed at a University of California.

Rebollar got involved with the union in March after some coworkers invited her to a meeting with other student workers across UCSB’s various dining halls to share grievances and talk about forming a union. Rebollar said she was motivated to make her dining hall a better place to work. 

“It feels as if it’s the start of something,” Rebollar said. “It’s also very exciting just to see that this can be accomplished and the hope is, obviously, to inspire other UCs.”

Phoebe Dupa, a second-year environmental studies student who has worked in the Portola dining hall for more than a year, told Noozhawk that certain rooms such as the kitchen or dish room can get very hot to work in. She said that while there were fans in the dish room last year, she didn’t feel them until this year.

“I don’t know how I was able to put up with that, honestly,” Dupa said. 

Dupa said there’s a high turnover rate at the dining halls, but for those who need to work on or near campus, they don’t have a lot of other options. 

“I feel like we deserve to have a place that we want to stay at,” Dupa said. “I feel like we don’t have a choice. It’s not easy to get a different job, especially since most of us are there for the work study as well. So our options are limited as to where we could work.”

Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865 — the union that the SDLU will be joining — told Noozhawk that the SDLU reached out about becoming part of the union, and after conversations among UAW leaders, they were excited to have them join.

“Everyone was very excited about the ongoing organizing drive going on in the dining hall, and all the leaders of 2865 welcomed them with open arms when they decided to file for recognition,” Jaime said.

To form a union in the public sector in California, workers must collect signatures for at least 30% of workers authorizing a union, then workers can file a petition with the Public Employment Relations Board to receive union recognition.

PERB then notifies the workers’ employer that a petition has been submitted to form a union. A spokesperson with UCSB told Noozhawk that they have received the SDLU’s petition.

“We recently received the petition and are still in the process of reviewing it,” a university spokesperson told Noozhawk. “We continue to work in good faith to follow the process outlined in state law, respecting the rights of the parties involved and our employees.”

Jaime told Noozhawk that the next step is for the university to recognize the union and begin bargaining. The workers will then form a bargaining team and begin negotiating a contract, but it’s unclear when that process would begin.

Negotiations will likely take place among the bargaining team, representatives of the University of California Office of the President, representatives from UCSB, and staff who oversee the dining halls, according to Jaime.

Until then, Rebollar told Noozhawk that the dining hall workers will continue to have conversations about what they want to negotiate.

“We’re just looking into getting our co-workers to be on the same page and just have those conversations with them,” Rebollar said. “Asking them what it is that they want to see change, build that internal connection and then go off from there.”

Rebollar’s advice to other student workers looking to form a union is to make sure they have a strong community and to trust themselves. 

“Definitely just look into it,” Rebollar said. “Trust yourselves, and go forth with it in a way that is obviously democratic, and involves the student dining workers as a whole.”