When workers for Bon Appétit Management Company’s Macalester branch, the California-based firm that the college contracts for food service management, won their union election in March of 2024, there were high hopes in the kitchen for better working conditions. Now, longtime Café Mac Chefs Muhamed Kekic, Kenny Head and Kurt Jetter have new demands: to receive more pay corresponding to a new position that, in their eyes, accurately reflects their current responsibilities.
Meet the chefs turned “cooks”
Muhamed Kekic, who moved to the United States after graduating from culinary school in Bosnia in the 1990s, has been cooking at Macalester for over 25 years. Kekic is currently a cook primarily for the pizza station at Café Mac, where homemade crusts are mixed and baked daily.
Kurt Jetter has worked in many chef positions throughout his lengthy career in food service, and has enjoyed the flexibility and lack of weekend work possible with his position through Bon Appétit. Jetter has been with Bon Appétit for 16 years, and at Macalester’s branch for more than five.
It was because of the job’s flexibility, Jetter said, that he was able to raise and support two sons while working. Jetter is currently a cook at the “Warm & Soulful” station, where he enjoys feeding students and avoiding the traditional structure of a hotel or ‘brigade’ style kitchen.
Kenny Head — whom you may know from “Kenny’s Corner,” the soup station at Café Mac — has worked for Bon Appétit for over 21 years, but has over a total of 35 years in the food service industry. Before stepping into his current saucier position in 2002, Head was a lead cook and sous chef in many restaurants since 1990.
Classification conundrum In addition to the responsibilities of their current positions as cook, Jetter, Kekic and Head claim they fulfill a level of work consistent with the title of senior cook.”
The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Compass (Bon Appétit’s parent company) and UNITE HERE Local 17 (the hospitality union representing Bon Appétit workers at Macalester) went active on June 1, 2024. In it, there are two cook titles: “Cook” and “Senior Cook.” No current Bon Appétit employees at Macalester possess the senior cook title, despite it remaining as a position in the contract.
Kekic worked in the position of “Lead Cook” for over eight years before the initial union organizing when Bon Appétit reviewed and sent a list of their union eligible workers to UNITE HERE Local 17. On this list, Kekic’s role had been changed to “Cook.”
“So he’s been doing the [lead cook job] for eight or nine years at that, and then all of a sudden [his title] changed,” Union Representative for UNITE HERE Local 17 Theo Bilski ’20 said: “He’s still doing the same job he’s been doing.”
Kekic did not receive a negative change in wages when the CBA went into place, but if he had been given the position of senior cook, he would have received a higher wage than the one he possesses currently as cook.
“I don’t care about [the] position; I just care about [the] money: what I deserve, how much I’ve worked,” Kekic said. “I was so mad when they took [the position] from me—and did not even tell me.”
Kekic, Head and Jetter are currently paid above starting wages for cooks due to raises they have received over the duration of their time working at Bon Appétit. All of their pay is still lower than what they would receive as senior cooks.
While Jetter and Head did not possess the same “Lead Cook” position as Kekic did before union organizing started, they both shared similar sentiments to Kekic, asking to be classified as senior cooks based on their current work responsibilities.
The biggest differences between the senior cook and cook positions are that “senior cooks are responsible for helping with menu creation and planning, delegation within a station and the set up and takedowns of stations,” Bilski said.
Jetter, Head and Kekic all claim they already carry out these responsibilities in their day-to-day work as cooks.
“[Jetter, Head and Kekic are] qualified for it, and also they’re already doing the work,” Bilski said. “I think that’s the key piece. It’s not just that [they’re saying they] want this position, it’s that they’re already doing the work.”
“I feel slighted and it’s unfair,” Head wrote in a text to The Mac Weekly. “I’m just asking for what is right by the guidelines Bon Appétit agreed to with the union.”
In defending their decision not to classify Kekic, Head and Jetter as senior cooks, representatives for Bon Appétit said that the company is not currently offering the senior cook position. They have also contested the claim that Kekic, Head and Jetter are doing the senior cook-level work that they claim to be doing.
Kekic, Head and Jetter used Bon Appétit’s words as evidence to back up their claim that they are doing the work of a senior cook. They referenced the performance reports they had received from Bon Appétit, in which representatives of the company commended them on doing an excellent job at tasks like creating menus and training employees — tasks that are included in the job description for senior cook.
They also brought up statements from their coworkers saying that they have seen Kekic, Head and Jetter doing senior cook-level work on the floor.
Bon Appétit General Manager Amy Tomes declined to comment on the issue; company policy precludes her from discussing matters of personnel.
Taking action
Kekic, Head and Jetter first went to Bilski with the issue of their classification in late August 2024. After investigating the issue and finding that it was warranted, UNITE HERE Local 17 filed a grievance on behalf of the three workers. They were granted a grievance meeting, which was held on Oct. 1, 2024.
At the meeting, Kekic and Bilski represented the chefs, while Tomes and Executive Chef Jake Eyers represented management. Kekic and Bilski presented statements from the three affected chefs and their coworkers, who backed up the chefs’ claims. According to Bilski, management looked at this evidence for ten minutes at most before they rejected the grievance.
Following the meeting, members of management and those representing the chefs went back and forth trying to find a solution, but they were unsuccessful.
In December 2024, Kekic, Head and Jetter got their coworkers to sign a support petition, saying that they know that the three chefs are meeting the requirements of the senior cook position. In his narration of presenting the petition to Tomes, Jetter described feeling that Tomes acted apathetically. Jetter felt rejected after this interaction, and finds many aspects of the situation to be demeaning.
“These folks went and presented [the petition] to [Tomes] to basically say, ‘Our co-workers support us in this, and we’re doing this work, and we deserve this,’ and the company has not responded in any meaningful way,” Bilski said.
After being unable to find a solution, the two parties filed to send the issue to arbitration. At their hearing, if or when it occurs, the union and Bon Appétit will both present their cases to an arbitrator, who will then make a binding decision.
According to Bilski, setting up arbitration and waiting for a hearing is a lengthy process. Bilski would be open to avoiding the hearing, but only if the two sides reached a fair settlement ahead of the as-of-yet unscheduled hearing date. He stressed that the union would not drop the issue in order to avoid arbitration.
The two sides have not talked much about reaching a fair settlement since November, and Bilski sees arbitration as the likely end to this process.
Whatever the process to get there, Kekic, Head and Jetter want their classification and wages to match what they believe they deserve.
“I just want this company to understand that I’m not [asking] for more wages because of the money alone,” Head wrote. “I’m just asking this company I’ve loved over the years to leave on the table what [is] right and fair.”
