Austin school cafeteria workers ask district to pay for uniforms

Request comes as Education Austin requests $29.5 million in overall raises and benefits package from district

By Molly Bloom
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, June 16, 2008

Austin school district cafeteria workers must supply their own work clothes: a pair of black pants, a white collared shirt, rubber-soled shoes, and a hairnet. It's not haute couture, but school district bosses say that workers should pay for the clothes and hairnets because they can wear the items on any number of occasions outside of the hot lunch line.

Some food service workers disagree.

Last month, the Austin school board heard a grievance originally filed by six food service workers who say it's unfair that the district requires its 750 cafeteria workers — among the district's lowest-paid employees — to pay for the clothing and mandatory hairnets themselves.

Larry Throm, the district's chief financial officer, said a budget request for uniforms for the food service workers, most of whom work part time, was submitted for consideration for the upcoming school year budget that Superintendent Pat Forgione is expected to present to trustees today.

Although several other local school districts, including Hays and Eanes, provide food service workers with uniforms, Austin food service workers receive higher starting wages, $9.50 compared with $8.25 and $9.24, respectively, and significantly more paid holidays.

District officials say that purchasing workers' clothes and shoes would require corresponding cuts in other areas of the food service department's budget. It would cost $27,000 a year to give each worker two 50-cent hairnets a week.

Still, Aracely Reyes, a 40-year-old mother of six who makes $10.15 an hour as a part-time worker in the Kealing Middle School cafeteria, said it's not fair that she has to spend about $200 a year on work supplies.

"They don't pay us anything extra" to purchase them, Reyes said.

The workers' request for uniforms comes as Education Austin, a labor group with 4,000 members including food service workers, asks trustees for an 11 percent raise for all employees over two years, an increase in the district's minimum wage from $9.50 to $13 over two years and a district contribution to health insurance costs for employees' families, among other items.

The total price tag for Education Austin's request would be about $29.5 million.

After a series of meetings with the cafeteria workers last month, trustees declined to act immediately on the grievance.

Trustees have scheduled a fifth grievance hearing about the uniform request for September and have asked district administrators to "explore the development of comprehensive food service work standards in collaboration with the Southwest Workers' Union," which represents about 200 district employees, most of them food service workers.

An attorney for the school district said that if administrators supplied cafeteria workers with the requested equipment, they might have to provide mandatory supplies and uniforms for bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers and other employees. Currently, the district supplies uniforms only to district police officers.

Giving uniforms to all 2,455 custodians, food service workers, and transportation and maintenance workers would cost more than $715,000, officials said. To supply all food service workers with ten $15 shirts, ten $18 pairs of pants and two 50-cent hairnets a week would cost about $274,500 for the 36-week school year, officials said.

The food service workers calculate their needs more modestly. They say each worker needs five $7 shirts, five $16 pants, a $70 pair of shoes, and $15 for hairnets each year — a total cost of about $150,000.

Under state law, food service workers must wear hair restraints and clean outer clothing, but the Austin school district goes beyond that. It requires food service workers, most of whom work less than 40 hours a week, to wear white collared shirts and black pants so that other employees can identify them, said district food service director Chris Carrillo. Workers are required to wear rubber-soled shoes such as sneakers for safety reasons, Carrillo said.

All of the items — white shirts, black pants and sneakers — can be worn outside of work, Carrillo said. The district has food service workers buy their own hairnets so they can select a model that suits their hair color and head size, Carrillo said.

"They're more of a personal hygiene item," Carrillo said.

mbloom@statesman.com; 445-3620

Source: Southwest Workers' Union; Austin school district