Returning to school this fall, many Macalester students have likely noticed changes at the college’s dining locations.
When Bon Appétit workers received their schedule for this school year, they noticed significant alterations to their hours and work processes, causing loss in pay and benefits, and adding to stress, which has led some workers to look elsewhere for work.
Amelia Tumanina, a former food server for Bon Appétit at Macalester, learned about her hour cuts two weeks prior to the start of fall semester.
“I got cut from 40 hours to 23, started losing about $1,000 a month, and it ripped me from full-time to part-time, including losing my benefits,” Tumanina said.
Tumanina decided to leave Bon Appétit on Oct. 11. She left after feeling frustrated by the effects of the hour cuts and seeing her front of the house manager, Ryan O’Rourke, departing from the company.
Luna Dernlan, front of house worker for Bon Appétit at Macalester, said she experienced an initial reduction of their hours from full-time status as an employee without seniority. She elaborated that all shifts were shortened across the board by 30 minutes and that newer front of house workers were cut up to half of their original hours.
“One of the main reasons I’m at this job is that our healthcare rocks,” Dernlan said. “So, getting cut to 22 hours a week, not only did that basically half my income, that also would kick me off [the health] insurance.”
According to the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Bon Appétit and the worker’s union UNITE HERE Local 17, employees that work more than 30 hours per week are classified as full-time employees. Only full-time employees are eligible for healthcare benefits.
Barista Henna Schecter ’26 said that other employees recently left Bon Appétit due to the hour cuts, among other reasons, leading to additional tension and loss of community.
“People are very overworked and very stressed, and there’s definitely some anger and frustration towards the lack of communication and lack of things changing [for the better],” Schecter said. “People are bringing up concerns that aren’t really being addressed. There’s been a lot of turnover.”
Macalester student workers are also no longer stationed at the Grille, leading to further staffing issues. Bon Appétit’s hour cuts have affected parts of the company’s operations at Macalester from cleanliness to efficiency to food quality. Tumanina said that she immediately noticed quality issues in Bon Appétit’s operations at the Grille and Cafe Mac due to insufficient staffing, especially during meal service transitions.
Due to hours and staff reductions between meal times, Tumanina said she had difficulty cleaning and wiping down tables before the start of dinner service and had to take on extra cleaning duties due to the lack of co-workers to help her. Tumanina also said that she felt singled out by Bon Appétit for taking on these extra responsibilities.
“It’s been filthier than it was last year,” Tumanina said. “It’s not fair to the students who pay to eat here, to be having to sit in a dirty environment.”
Schecter described similar challenges at the Grille. The hour cuts have resulted in one or two people a shift instead of three or four to handle dishes, restocking and handling orders.
“There are less people working, and so there’s less wiggle room when there are rushes,” Schecter said. “When something goes wrong, you have to run down to grab something real quick, and you’re the only one there because the other person’s on break, or you’re the only one scheduled.”
Schecter also noted that additional stress has come from new lower-level management being temporarily brought in from Bon Appétit corporate to assist with staffing. She said that some of these new managers instituted policies that vary from each other and common Macalester Bon Appétit policies, leading to employee frustration over the lack of communication and clear directions.
In 2024, Macalester Bon Appétit workers voted to unionize and affiliated with UNITE HERE Local 17 representing hospitality workers throughout Minnesota. As a result of the hour cuts, impact on daily work life and lack of union awareness, Tumanina and later on Dernlan became a Macalester Bon Appétit’s Union Steward for UNITE HERE Local 17.
“A lot of people are frustrated with UNITE HERE because there has been a lack of communication from their end [about resolution efforts],” Schecter said. “UNITE HERE leadership talks to workers pretty frequently, and is doing a pretty good job of getting input and knowing what concerns are. The bigger issue is that they don’t really have good leverage… and nothing that Bon Appétit is doing breaks the CBA so they don’t really have a good legal footing, everything would have to come from worker leverage.”
According to Article 22 Section 4 of the CBA, there is no establishment from Bon Appétit of “a guaranteed work schedule, number of days or hours to be worked in a work week, or the hours to be worked in a day.” However, “to the extent operationally possible and as determined by the Employer, the Employer is committed to the creation of as many full-time schedules as possible.”
Article 35 of the CBA also prohibits Bon Appétit workers from going on strike or walking out, they are allowed to file grievances if the union alleges that Bon Appétit has broken the contract.
In their role as union steward, Dernlan declined to comment on whether a current grievance has been filed or if ongoing mediation is occurring.
In an effort to restore their hours, UNITE HERE Local 17 organized meetings with Amy Tomes, General Manager of Bon Appétit at Macalester and other Bon Appétit management that enabled employees to speak directly with management about their workplace issues.
“We all stood up and talked [about] how these hour cuts affect us,” Tumanina said. “[Management was] just sitting there, listening to us, seeing people cry and just looking us dead in our eyes.”
Dernlan said that the response from management in both group meetings and individual conversations with employees was that the cuts were not their choice and came from higher up in Bon Appetit management.
“At each of the colleges and universities we serve, we conduct a holistic review of our dining operations between academic years.” Michelle Kirkwold, regional director of Bon Appétit Management Company, wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “There were three team members — out of our nearly 90-person team — whose hours were reduced from [full-time] to [part-time] due to business needs and in accordance with the seniority framework outlined by the collective bargaining agreement. We continue to work with those team members to facilitate the addition of available hours to augment their assigned schedules.”
Kirkwold wrote that the across-the-board 30 minute cuts from shifts were decided during the summer review to help balance operational needs with its commitments to employees. Kirkwold also acknowledged changes to student employee breaks to ensure continuous meal coverage but did not comment on other Bon Appétit staffing changes.
“Th[e] review also included an analysis of the average hours worked by full-time employees during the 2024–25 academic year, which closely aligns with the updated schedules implemented at the start of this academic year,” Kirkwold wrote. “All schedule updates were made with careful and attentive consideration of our commitments to the College, the student body, our team member needs, and the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement.”
“Let’s say we had a shift that went from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., but we don’t have any meal service between 1:30 in the afternoon until 5,” Tomes said. “So, if there happened to have been people in previous years that worked over those times, those are labor efficiencies that we might look at year-to-year to look at efficiencies in the business.”
Tomes also added that she was not aware of any employees leaving specifically because of hour cuts.
“We have people leaving for different reasons all of the time … there’s not really many periods of time that we don’t have some available position[s] open,” Tomes said.
Despite some Bon Appétit employees leaving the company, some are opting to stay in light of the changes.
“I feel called to stay and be a part of [the union’s] fight to ensure that workers are getting as much as we can,” Dernlan said. “But it depends on what the company does. If they keep making these cuts and if next year I can’t afford rent working this job, then I might have to look for other employment.”
