University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Contract: 'Morale Doesn't Appear In Budget'

(The following colloquium
was written by a delegation of
Food Service student managers
and represents their unanimous
opinion.–Ed.)

Institutional food has never
been able to match the quality
of home cooking. However, the
responsibility of a food service
goes beyond the mere quality
of the meal. As the name
implies, the institution should
provide service as well as food.

The responsibility for
providing this service is the
duty of the supervisors and
managers. The current staff of
student supervisors have been
working towards this goal for
the last three years. However,
in the past six months it has
become almost impossible to
make any progress. Quality of
service has been consistently
sacrificed in favor of economic
expediency. This
preoccupation with economics
has been manifested in both
specific and general Food
Service Policies, policies so
intolerable that the student
supervisors have instituted
official grievance procedures.

Getting qualified help has
never been a problem. Even at
$1.66 per hour many students
need jobs and Food Service has
been one of the largest student
employers on the Grounds.
This year more than one
hundred students work in the
cafeteria alone. To balance
both economic restraints and
service demands, employee
work schedules were written in
January and subsequently
approved by Food Service
Director Bernard Fontana.
However, the situation soon
changed.

CD/Jim Brunetti

"Often The Line Must Be Temporarily Halted...."

When an employee left the
organization the other workers
were forced to cover until a
replacement was hired. When
this occurred in late February
no change in service was
immediately evident, so the
Food Service Office in
Lambeth House decided that
extra money need not be spent
to hire anyone else. Thus,
vacant positions remained open
resulting in an increased
amount of work with no
increase of pay.

But this was not enough.
Lambeth House claimed the
payroll was still too large and
ordered the schedules cut. The
most painful example
occurred recently in the
dishroom.

Hardest Working Unit

The dishroom is the hardest
working unit in the cafeteria.
Not only do these people wash
the dishes and supply the
serving line with clean dishes,
but they perform busing duties
made necessary by the
institution of self-busing in
Contract (another economy
measure). It was determined
that fifteen employees could
efficiently handle the job. Mr.
Fontana observed the
operation last week for a few
minutes and told the Service
Manager that the dishroom was
designed to be run by seven
employees. But Newcomb Hall
was designed to feed a
maximum of a thousand with
full busing service; yet, this
year fourteen hundred meal
tickets were sold and an
average of two hundred and
fifty people eat in Open Square
each night.

An emergency meeting was
organized to inform Mr.

Fontana of the problem this
cut would create. When told by
the student dishroom
supervisor that the dishroom
was unworkable with such a
reduced staff, Mr. Fontana
replied that he doesn't "react
well to threats," and ordered
the cuts made. The supervisor
added that his employees were
unanimously opposed and that
morale was at a low point; Mr.
Fontana only said, "Morale
doesn't appear in the budget."

With the reduced work
force, the amount of work the
remaining employees could do
in a single day decreased.
Formerly, the dishroom crew
was able to wash all dishes and
silverware before they left at
night. Now, many things are
left undone because there
simply isn't anyone to do the
jobs. This incompleteness was
desired by Mr. Fontana in
order to create work for the
full time crew, who otherwise
had been idle their early
morning hours. In other words,
the students suffered for their
efficiency.

Counter-productivity

The dishroom is not the
only place where student
efficiency worked
counterproductively. All salads
are prepared in what is called
the Production Unit of the
Cafeteria. In theory, the salad
production attendant (a
full-time employee) was to
prepare sufficient salad to last
the night. This supply proved
to be greatly inadequate and a
student line server had to leave
the serving line to replenish the
supply. This, of course, left a
vacant position for which other
workers had to compensate.
Service declined to such a low
degree that several students
were scheduled to Production
permanently. However, there
are still vacancies on the line
that should be filled by these
employees who are being used
elsewhere.

These and other events have
created an undesirable
situation. All employees are
still getting their original base
wage, yet doing the job of two
or three people. The Open
Square crew was cut from eight
to four under the expressed
theory that the remaining
people could cover the vacant
positions. This, in effect, says
an employee can do his own
job and someone else's at the
same time. Yet, not one
student has received a raise
since last September.

Extra Duties

This not only affects the
average cafeteria attendant, but
the student supervisors as well.
Along with everyone else, they
have assumed many extra
duties. The amount of extra
work has reduced them to a
high priced cafeteria attendant.
The supervisor now does such
jobs as refill salad condiments
and salad supplies, acquire
dishes from the dishroom and
refill silverware bar. This leaves
him with no time to do the job
he's been hired to do:
supervise.

Obviously, service suffers.
The Contract customers find
only forks for their breakfast
cereal, a choice of only ice
cream or no ice cream for
dessert or a complete lack of
salad for dinner. Often the line
must be temporarily halted
while someone runs to get
dishes, chicken or jello.
Contract customers must bus
their own tables because it's
cheaper than paying busboys
to do the job as in the past.
The customer has no real way
of complaining since he has
already paid the full fee long
ago.

Consequently, the customer
counts keep dropping. As time
goes on more people get fed up
enough to find somewhere else
to eat. Lambeth House has
correctly attributed this to
poor service. However, they
claim it is caused by poor
supervision and inadequate
work performance, not their
restrictive regulations forced
on the employees. This creates
a vicious circle whereby
employees are cut, service is
reduced, fewer customers show
up so employees are cut, and
so on. This can only lead to an
obvious result: a total failure
of the cafeteria.

Paradoxically enough, the
student supervisors have
managed to hold the cafeteria
together at night. Yet even
though they have, there are
reports, as yet undenied, that
the student supervisors will be
phased out this summer. It
would seem Food Services
wants to exploit the high
quality work of students
without affording them any
opportunity for complaint or
worse, meaningful suggestions.

Sense Of Frustration

So after three years of
trying in vain to provide an
acceptable amount of service,
we the student supervisors and
managers, have been overcome
by a sense of frustration. In a
final attempt to effect some
improvement in Food Services,
we are trying to make as much
of the situation public as
possible. Beside this attitude
and the official grievances
which are being filed, there is
an open forum tonight at 8:00
in the Chemistry Auditorium,
the proceedings of which will
be heard by the University
Food Service Committee. Mr.
Fontana has stated he will be
guided by the Committee's
recommendations.

So please support the
student employees and come
to this meeting with your
gripes. You know what the
situation is – you eat there.
Only through general support
can we convey this to people
who have the power to change
it.