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The Mizzou Young Democratic Socialists of America and CDS employees collected more than 2,000 petitions, signed by students and CDS employees.
A group of Campus Dining Services employees presented 2,185 signed petitions advocating for a $15 wage to Donald Jackson, the interim Campus Dining Services director, on April 27.
A total of 2,414 petitions were collected, with 229 completed virtually via Google Forms according to a news release by Quinn Coffman, Plaza 900 Dining employee and Mizzou Young Democratic Socialists of America co-chair. The majority of the forms were signed by MU students.
Signatures were gathered over the past year and a half as a combined effort between members of YDSA and current and former CDS employees.
“[YDSA] thought we also do have a responsibility as an organization at Mizzou, on this campus, to the students who are student workers,” Coffman said. “We thought the most vulnerable students are stuck on campus working campus jobs. And so that is how we really started deciding then that we would be organizing CDS.”
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Organizers drafted petitions asking individuals to sign their name if they agreed that “CDS workers deserve $15 per hour.” They were inspired by the national Fight for $15 movement, which aims to raise the minimum wage throughout the U.S.
“[With] the rate of inflation at this point, the Fight for $15 that’s on a federal level, it’s already outdated,” Ian Sebastian De Smet, student supervisor at Pizza and MO and YDSA member, said. “If the largest worker population on campus is not even getting 15 [dollars] an hour, what kind of respect does the university really have for us as workers and as students?”
According to the CDS website, part-time employees currently start at $12.30 per hour. This rate is 30 cents above the Missouri minimum wage of $12. As MU is a public employer, university employees must be paid at least the federal minimum wage, $7.25 per hour.
“We currently pay above the state and federal minimum wage requirements,” Uriah Orland, Associate Director of the MU News Bureau, said. “The University is always reviewing employee compensation to provide the most competitive wages.”
At noon on April 27, members of YDSA and CDS employees met at the Virginia Avenue Amphitheater outside Plaza 900 before presenting the petitions. CDS employees, alongside YDSA leadership, brought the petitions to Jackson at the CDS office above Plaza 900 Dining.
“[Jackson] was actually very responsive,” De Smet said. “He gave us the usual spiel of ‘we’ll do what we can.’ But we dropped the signatures that we gathered on his desk. And we will keep communication with him to make sure that by the beginning of the next semester, fall 2023, we can have a minimum wage for CDS workers at $15 an hour.”
Following the meeting with Jackson, people gave speeches, ate pizza and played music on the steps of the amphitheater.
Luke Fennewald, former Plaza 900 Dining employee and local organizer for Local Laborers (LiUNA) 955, then encouraged attendees to sign a petition advocating for a statewide minimum wage of $15 in Missouri. Local Laborers (LiUNA) 955 is a union that represents public employees in Missouri.
“In the end, it’s the workers who are doing most of the work,” Fennewald said. “That’s the basis of any sort of labor organization; the ones doing the work should be compensated for those hours and the physical labor that they’re doing.”
Edited by Mercy Austin and Zoe Homan | maustin@themaneater.com, zhoman@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Grace Knight
