VYING FOR THE SENATE’S ATTENTION
Dining workers seek higher pay and health insurance
As people rushed to the Supreme Court last week to chant about abortion, a different kind of protest unfolded just a block away.
Senate dining workers gathered once again to march in a tight circle, calling for better benefits and job security. It was their latest action as they push for a union contract, and they tried to convey a sense of urgency.
Anthony Thomas recently broke his hand but doesn’t have health insurance. He works with food and supplies in the Capitol complex, and his bills are piling up.
“I’m just in a pickle,” he said Tuesday.
It was a strange day to be picketing on Capitol Hill. Of the hundreds of people shouting and waving signs, only a couple dozen were talking about the union. The rest were there to mourn or celebrate the news that the high court seems ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The dining workers had no way of knowing their action would be overshadowed, as they started planning it long before a leaked draft of the court’s decision exploded into view. And if it hadn’t been abortion, it could have been another issue dominating the conversation. For the workers who keep lawmakers fed on the Hill, it has never been easy to get attention for their demands.
“I’m just here doing what I believe in, which is fighting for my issues and my contract that we need,” said Thomas, one of about 175 workers who handle food in the Senate office buildings and Capitol Visitor Center.
Thomas and his colleagues work for an outside vendor, Restaurant Associates, rather than directly for the legislative branch. But they are counting on support from senators in their fight. The union representing the workers, UNITE HERE, has reached a tentative agreement with Restaurant Associates to raise pay and offer affordable health insurance, but it’s not a done deal until the Senate can renegotiate its own expiring contract with the vendor.
Workers want Senate officials to show they are making progress on those negotiations and are threatening further pickets and “next steps” if that doesn’t happen by May 18.
A group of senators, led by Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, sent a letter Wednesday urging the Architect of the Capitol to keep the union’s demands in mind as they hammer out new terms with Restaurant Associates.
“Of all cafeteria workers in federal buildings around Washington, D.C., Senate cafeteria workers are the least likely to be enrolled in employer-sponsored health insurance or retirement,” the letter says. “Only 18 percent have employer-sponsored health insurance and none are enrolled in employersponsored pension benefits.”
Klobuchar is chair of the Senate Rules and Administration panel, which has oversight over the Architect of the Capitol and how it operates the sprawling complex.
One crisis has already been averted, after about 80 workers facing layoffs in April got a reprieve. Pandemic relief money had dried up, but lawmakers were able to redirect $3.75 million in already-appropriated pandemic funding to help Restaurant Associates keep workers on the payroll through the end of September.
The Senate’s current contract with Restaurant Associates goes through December 2022, and the union has called for a new fee-forservice model that would be more transparent. The Architect of the Capitol has other options as well. In theory, the agency could put the food contract out for a bid or even move dining services back in-house, although that would be a drastic change.