In the past week, Northeastern University has transitioned all its classes in Boston to online and forced all students in on-campus housing to move out, based on recommendations from public health officials to increase social distancing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This shutdown of Northeastern’s Boston campus has enormous consequences for all of Northeastern’s on-campus workers, including the dining hall staff.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 8:00 AM, Northeastern announced that all Boston campus dining operations would move to take-out only, and that all residential dining halls except for International Village will close beginning March 18. This morning, the dining hall workers were informed that they would be paid for all of their shifts until March 19, but after that, most of the dining hall workers will be laid off.

This extremely abrupt announcement has left most of our dining hall workers without economic security in a time of dire crisis. Therefore, as Northeastern students, we demand that Northeastern University pressure Chartwells, a subsidiary of the contractor Compass Group USA which employs Northeastern dining hall workers, to continue paying the dining hall workers for the next 30 days, so that they can have economic security while they adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic during the next few weeks.

Other dining hall workers in the Boston area, notably those at Harvard University and Tufts University, have reached agreements that ensure dining hall workers will receive full pay for at least 30 days after their last day of work. With support from the Northeastern community, we can achieve the same security for Northeastern dining hall workers and continue to aid in the fight for their economic justice as the situation progresses.